War calling involves dialing a large number of phone numbers to identify modems and other devices. It is illegal in some regions and can be detected by telephone companies. War dialing can be used for security testing or hacking, but can also be annoying for those in the scanned area.
War calling is a practice of calling large volumes of telephone numbers to gather information about which numbers connect to modems and other devices of interest. There are a number of reasons people may engage in war calling and it is not legal in some regions. Many telephone companies have systems designed to detect this. These systems will act to lock a user out of the telephone system if it appears that he or she is attempting to make war calls.
In war dialing, people identify a range of phone numbers of interest, such as all numbers within a given area code. Numbers can be dialed sequentially or randomly, and notes are taken of how each number is answered, whether it be a modem, fax, internal telephone system, home or work. Most war dialers use software designed for this purpose to automate the process rather than dialing numbers by hand, allowing them to scan hundreds of numbers very quickly.
Security companies sometimes use war dialing as a penetration testing tool to identify security weaknesses that could allow hackers to access a system through phones. Sometimes war calls reveal a vulnerable modem or other weakness that could potentially be exploited. People who are simply curious or want to map numbers to an area code can also use this technique, such as those who want to generate a list of all phone numbers owned by a particular company.
Hackers and crackers can use war composition to find systems that can be manipulated in some way. A war dialing program may be designed to attempt to crack usernames and passwords if it is able to access a modem or internal telephone system, for example. Likewise, hackers can make a note of anything interesting identified during the scanning session and use this information to attempt to hack into or break into a system. This can be done with simple curiosity or mischief in mind.
One problem with war calls is that it can be annoying for people who live or work in a scanned area. The war dialer usually hangs up after two rings or when a person answers, rejecting the number as uninteresting. This can be annoying for people with only one phone line who think they’ve missed a call, and can become disruptive for businesses that may have a block of phone numbers, as each number will ring separately as the war dialer moves through. the list of numbers to be scanned.
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