Peter is surfing the internet looking for information about DX Company.

Footprinting is the first phase of ethical hacking and information gathering. It involves collecting as much information as possible about a target system or organization from public sources (such as websites, social media, WHOIS databases, job postings, etc.) before launching an attack or vulnerability scan.

???? Reference – CEH v13 Official Study Guide, Module 1: Introduction to Ethical Hacking

“Footprinting is the process of gathering information about a target system to find ways to intrude into the system.”

❌ Incorrect options:

A. Scanning is the next phase, involving probing the network.

C. Enumeration extracts detailed information from services like SNMP, NetBIOS, etc.

D. System Hacking is the actual exploitation phase.