A Review of Common Tools and Techniques for Reconnaissance Attacks.. Proceedings of the

Abstract

Background: A reconnaissance helps the attacker gain valuable information on the target to help the attacker select the best tools that would make the attack successful. Aim: This study aims to review tools for reconnaissance attacks which will be beneficial to professional ethical hackers and also enlighten organizations and the general public of the potential harm of successful reconnaissance attacks. Methodology: The databases – Springer, Elsevier, Wiley, IEEE, ACM, ArXiv, and Google Scholar were explored. A quantitative evaluation was conducted on 19 selected articles. Result: 95.2% of the reconnaissance tools allowed experts to gather information by use of the command line. While 4.8% of the tools do not provide a commandline interface. 61.9% of the tools are network-based – can be used to gather data about the target’s network infrastructure. Conclusion: The best-fit tool is massively dependent on the attacker or penetration tester. Therefore, a tool should be selected based on the user’s preference and the attack style. Keywords: Reconnaissance, cyber-attack, cybersecurity,social engineering, techniques.