Ethical Hacking: Footprinting and Reconnaissance

This course introduces you to one of the most critical phases of ethical hacking: reconnaissance. You'll learn how attackers gather information to build an attack strategy—and how ethical hackers use those same techniques to assess risk and strengthen defenses. You'll explore tools like Maltego to uncover hidden relationships, and Nmap and Zenmap for scanning and enumeration.

Each lesson combines theory with hands-on practice so you can confidently conduct open-source intelligence (OSINT), map targets, scan for ports and services, and enumerate critical system data.

• Understand how gathering information reveals weaknesses in a target organization
• Use Maltego to map entities, infrastructure, and social media platforms
• Scan networks to identify open ports, services, and operating system details
• Run Nmap scripts to uncover misconfigurations and sensitive information
• Visualize scan results in Zenmap to assess the security posture clearly
• Perform enumeration using search engines and tools to extract deeper system data

By completing this course, you’ll be able to identify vulnerabilities through port scanning, uncover OS and location information, and collect valuable information like contact details and devices connected to a network. You’ll also understand how social engineering fits into reconnaissance and how security professionals use data gathered to perform a vulnerability assessment, recommend security measures, and compile a detailed report.