Option A is the correct answer. Footprinting is the most important phase in ethical hacking as this is where an (ethical) hacker collects as much as information he or she could possibly get in order to enter into the system. This includes collecting the IP address, the operating system used, phone numbers, e-mail ID, DNS information, etc.
An ethical hacker spends most of the time in footprinting compared to other phases in ethical hacking because in this phase, he or she needs to profile an organization and gather information about the host, people, and network that are related to that certain organization. Footprinting helps in determining the security of the organization, identify the threats, and how the organization can be protected from possible attacks.
