Network Hacking (OS Fingerprinting)

-: Network Hacking (OS Fingerprinting) :-

OS Fingerprinting :- OS Fingerprinting refers to detection of target computer's operating system.
Since, different operating system responds differently to the same kind of ICMP message, it is very important for an attacker to determine the exact operating system running on target system.
Also attacker can carry out attacks by taking over the vulnerabilities/bugs found in that particular operating system.
There are four areas that we will look at to determine the operating system (however there are other signatures that can be used). These signatures are:

1) TTL - What the operating system sets the Time To Live on the outbound packet.
2) Window Size - What the operating system sets the Window Size at.

3) DF - Does the operating system set the Don't Fragment bit.
4) TOS - Does the operating system set the Type of Service, and if so, at what.

There are two different types of OS Fingerprinting technique -

1) Active OS Fingerprinting :- Remote active operating system fingerprinting is the process of actively determining a targeted network node’s underlying operating system by probing the
targeted system with several packets and examining the response(s), or lack thereof, received? The traditional approach is to examine the TCP/IP stack behavior (IP, TCP, UDP, and ICMP protocols) of a targeted network element when probed with several legitimate and/or malformed packets.

Recommended Tools
Nmap	http://nmap.org/download.html

2) Passive OS Fingerprinting :-Passive fingerprinting is based on sniffer traces from the remote system. Instead of actively querying the remote system, all you need to do is capture packets sent from the remote system. Based on the sniffer traces of these packets, you can determine the operating system of the remote host. Just like in active fingerprinting, passive fingerprinting is
based on the principle that every operating system's IP stack has its own idiosyncrasies. By analyzing sniffer traces and identifying these differences, you may be able determine the operating system of the remote host.

Recommended Tools
P0f	http://lcamtuf.coredump.cx/p0f.shtml
Ettercap	http://ettercap.sourceforge.net