---
title: How do I practise this step
course: intro_pentest
section: Reconnaissance
layout: lesson
---

Now that you’ve a solid understanding of the basic tools and techniques used to
conduct reconnaissance, you’ll need to practice everything that was covered
here. There are many ways to go about practising this step. One simple and
effective idea is to make a list of companies by reading a newspaper. If you
don’t have access to a newspaper, any popular news website will do, like
[http://cnn.com](http://cnn.com), [http://www.msnbc.com](http://msnbc.com), etc.

While making a list of potential targets to conduct reconnaissance on, try to
focus on company names that you’ve never heard of before. Any good newspaper or
website should contain dozens of companies that you’re unfamiliar with. One note
of caution here **YOU MUST BE SURE NOT TO DO ANY ACTIVE RECONNAISSANCE!**.
Obviously, you haven’t been authorized in any way to perform the active
techniques we covered in this topic. However, you can still practice information
gathering information through the passive techniques we discussed. This will
allow you to refine and sharpen your skills. It’ll also provide you with an
opportunity to develop a system for cataloguing, organizing and reviewing the
data you collect. Remember, while this may be the “least” technical phase, it
has the potential for the best returns.
