What is fingerprinting?

Creating a blueprint or map of an organization’s network and systems is known in cybersecurity as fingerprinting. An organization’s footprint is often referred to as an operation. Fingerprinting begins with identifying the target system, application, or physical site. 

Once this information is known, non-intrusive approaches are used to acquire information about the organization. For example, suppose the hacker has to execute a social-engineering assault to attain the goal. In that case, the organization’s website may include a personnel directory or a list of employee biography. 

What are the best practices to avoid fingerprinting? 

To determine what an attacker will be able to access, organizations must regularly use active and passive fingerprinting techniques on their networks. This data may be used to improve the security of the operating system and the network. Aside from that, businesses may take a few more steps. 

• Ensure that web servers, firewalls, intrusion prevention systems, and intrusion detection systems are correctly set and monitored. 

• If it is not essential, network interface devices should not be enabled to function in promiscuous mode. They must be closely monitored in such instances to avoid passive fingerprinting attacks. 

• Check the log files regularly for any unexpected behaviour. 

• Security flaws must be patched as quickly as feasible by system administrators. 

If you need more information, check out our article. 

What’s the difference between passive and active fingerprinting? 

Active fingerprinting differs from passive fingerprinting in that active fingerprinting sends requests to the target and analyses the answer. Passive fingerprinting captures and analyses traffic using a sniffer but never deliver it to the target. 

How to fix Fingerprinting? 

There are multiple ways to remove version information depending on the application. Some applications also share the information in multiple places, making it harder to remove it. Common places for version information are the filename of included libraries like ”jquery.3.2.1.min.js” or the documentation within a file, where the version number is stated within the first lines. 

While some information must be left within these files as a part of the copyright, other information like the version number can be removed. Other places could be the footer of an application “powered by WordPress 4.9.1” or meta-tags within the website’s header. Unlike servers, most web applications cannot remove this information via a config file and therefore need to be removed manually by editing the specific templates and files. 

Why should I run a fingerprinting vulnerability test? 

Obtaining knowledge about the webserver in use is critical for every attacker. There could be flaws in a particular web server version that permit an attacker to gain quick access to the server. The webserver must not reveal information about itself, such as its name or version, to make it more difficult for attackers to obtain information. 

The OWASP Top 10 vulnerability of using components with known vulnerabilities is addressed by this scanner. While it is critical to utilize the most recent version of your web server, you can add an extra level of protection by preventing attackers from knowing which webserver – and which version – you are using.es the fingerprinting scanner work? 

The fingerprinting scanner extracts information from the HTML and the server’s responses to identify which software and versions is used for the web app. As a result, it benchmarks against the latest available update and lets you know if you need to act. 

How do I run a fingerprinting scan? 

A fingerprinting scanner helps your security teams extract information that can be used to identify software and its versions, to avoid vulnerabilities & cyber attacks.  

Dynamic Application Security Testing (DAST) sends different realistic attacks as simulations to constantly identify the vulnerabilities in your web app, API, and code. Veracode DAST leverages a fingerprinting scan to test HTML-based web apps and JavaScript, AJAX, HTML5, Multi-Page and Single-Page Applications, Microservices, and APIs. So, you could scan every type of web application you need, independently of the programming language. 

• Onboard with a few clicks. Create a Single-Page Application, Multi-Page Application, API, or Microservices scan target, verify ownership, and execute a Quick or Full Scan after registering. With Veracode, you can scan your website and generate a report detailing any vulnerabilities discovered in minutes. 

• Star an automated scan as frequently as you want. Web applications, APIs, and some of their components are often changed. Before releasing your upgrade to production, do a routine scan to ensure you haven’t missed any vulnerabilities. 

• Excellent security support team. We double-check your fingerprinting test to ensure you’re using our security scanner appropriately.