What is reconnaissance?

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, your victory will not stand in doubt”

– Sun Tzu, The Art of War

I love this quote from the book The Art of War, by Sun Tzu. It’s a quote that is often used when it comes to reconnaissance or information gathering. To understand this quote, think about playing the role of an attacker. When you attack an enemy – in our case, a target system – you need to gather as much information as possible. On the other hand, the defenders will need to know what the adversary could discover on their systems or network. As you can see, information gathering is performed irrespective of whether you are an attacker or a defender.

Reconnaissance can be defined as a survey that is performed to obtain as much information as possible about a target. Reconnaissance aims to enable you to obtain an initial foothold in your target environment.

Note

Often, the terms reconnaissance and information...