Passive reconnaissance involves collecting information through which of the following?

Social engineering involves direct interaction with individuals at the target organization, making it an active reconnaissance technique.

Network traffic sniffing requires physical or logical proximity to the target network and constitutes active engagement with the target environment.

Man-in-the-middle attacks require active interception of communications between parties, which is an active attack technique, not passive reconnaissance.

Passive reconnaissance is defined by the absence of direct interaction with the target system or organization. Using publicly accessible sources such as WHOIS records, DNS lookups, social media, job postings, and search engines allows an attacker to gather intelligence without sending any packets to the target or risking detection.