Hacking Tools Archives - Page 2 of 13

Posted on January 6, 2025February 28, 2025 by Anamar Taknev

Complete guide to Subfinder

Hello, aspiring ethical hackers. In our previous blogpost, you learnt what is footprinting and various techniques used for footprinting. In this blogpost, you will learn about subfinder, a tool that helps us in footprinting.

Subfinder is a sub domain discovery tool that queries and retrieves valid sub domains for a given domain or website. It is a simple tool that uses passive subdomain enumeration for this purpose.

Let’s see how to use this tool to perform subdomain enumeration. For this, we will be using Kali Linux as our attacker machine. Subfinder can be installed on Kali as shown below.

The simplest method to use subfinder to query a sub domain of a particular domain is as shown below.

Specify multiple domains at once (-dL)

This tool can also query multiple domains at once. You can supply these domains using a file. For example, let’s create a new file “Domains.txt” and add a domain as shown below.

This file can be provided as input to subfinder as shown below.

View all the sources of this tool (-ls)

Subfinder collects information from a number of sources like AlienVault, Anubis, Censys, Shodan etc. You can view all the sources the subfinder tool queries using the command given below.

Query a single source (-s)

You can specify subfinder to query just one source using (-s) option as shown below. For example, let’s just specify GitHub and Anubis as sources.

Query all the sources (-all)

We can also specify this tool to query all the sources using the “-all” option.

Exclude some sources (-es)

We can even exclude some sources as shown below. For example, let’s exclude GitHub.

Display the source this tool queried in results (-cs)

We can even display source information to be displayed in output using the “-cs” option as shown below.

Saving output (-o)

You can save the output of this tool to a file as shown below.

Silent mode

In this mode, sub finder just displays the sub domains it found and nothing else.

Posted on January 2, 2025February 28, 2025 by kanishka10

Complete guide to Goldeneye tool

Hello, aspiring ethical hacker. In our previous blogpost, you learnt about Denial of Service (DoS) attack. In this blogpost, you will learn about goldeneye, a HTTP DoS Test Tool.

This tool helps us to test if a web server is susceptible to DoS and DDoS attacks in real-world. Like any DoS testing tool, it generates a large number of requests in short time. Let’s see how this tool works. For this, we will use Kali Linux as this tool is available by default in its repositories. It can be installed as shown below. To install it on other systems, it can be downloaded from here.

The simplest way to use goldeneye tool is to just provide the URL you want to test as shown below.

Different modes (-m)

By default, goldeneye uses GET requests to test a website. However, it has two other modes too: POST and RANDOM. You can set this modes using the “-m” option.

Number of workers (-w)

By default, goldeneye uses 10 workers running 500 connections each. However, we can change it using the “-w” option. For example, let’s set it to 20 workers.

Number of connections (-s)

Similarly, we can change the number of connections using the “-s” option. Let’s change the number of connections to 1000.

Debug mode(-d)

We can run goldeneye tool in debug mode using the “-d” option. Debug mode gives detailed information about the tests being performed.

Posted on December 30, 2024February 28, 2025 by kanishka10

Beginners guide to Lynis

Hello, aspiring ethical hackers. In this blogpost, you will learn about a tool called Lynis, the security auditing and hardening tool for UNIX based systems like Linux, macOS, BSD and others. It performs an in-depth security scan to test security defenses and provide suggestions for further system hardening.

This tool audits the following features on the system.

General system information.
System tools.
Operating system.
Boot and other services.
Kernel vulnerabilities.
Memory and processes.
Users, groups and authentication
Kerberos
Shells
File systems
USB devices
Storage
NFS
Name Services
Ports and packages
Networking
Printers and Spool
Email and messaging software
Firewalls
Web servers
SSH and SNMP
Databases
PHP (in web server)
Logging and log files
Insecure services
Banners
Scheduled Tasks
Accounting
Time and synchronization
Cryptography
Virtualization
Containers
Security frameworks
System tools and malware
File permissions etc.

Let’s see how to run Lynis for the first time. For this, we will be using Kali Linux. It can be installed on Kali as shown below.

After the installation is successful, run the command shown below to run it to audit the entire system.

lynis audit system

It runs as shown below.

While auditing, wherever there is scope for hardening, lynis adds a suggestion as shown below.

After the entire system is audited, Lynis provides summary of the entire audit as shown below.

Below the summary, you can find each suggestion as shown below.

You can harden your system based on these suggestions. You can also find this information in the log reports of Lynis.

Posted on December 28, 2024February 28, 2025 by kanishka10

Beginners guide to Eyewitness tool

Hello aspiring ethical hackers. In our previous blogpost, you studied about website footprinting. In this blogpost, you will learn about a tool called eyewitness which helps you to decide which website to focus on.

In ethical hacking, before trying to footprint a website, it would be good if we have a general idea about what websites to target first. For example, a company you are going to pen test may have multiple websites and sub domains. Before we jump into password cracking or exploitation or directory busting or perform any other attack, it would be good if we are first able to decide what website and URLs to target first. The role of eyewitness tool comes there. Eyewitness takes the screenshots of the URLs or websites you provide. Apart from taking screenshot of the URL, it will also capture any header info and default passwords.

Let’s see how to use this tool. For this we will be using Kali Linux as this tool is available by default in Kali repositories. As target, we will be using Metasploitable 2 installed in our virtual hacking Lab. It can be installed as shown below.

Target a single URL (–single)

You can take screenshot of a single URL as shown below.

As soon as it writes a report for your target, it will ask you if you want to open the report. Click on “Yes”. It will open the report as shown below.

You can even view the code of the URL you scanned.

But the real power of eyewitness can be seen when we are targeting multiple URLs at once. For doing this, we will first create a file called URLS.txt and add some URLs we want to target as shown below.

Target multiple URLs (-f)

Multiple URLs can be targeted with this tool by specifying the above created file with (-f) option.

Here’s the report.

One of our URLs we targeted ended up in a error.

Skip DNS resolution(–no-dns)

In some cases, while using eyewitness tool, you may have to go through a VPN. In such cases, it is good to skip DNS resolution when connecting to the website. This option helps you to do it.

Resolve IP / host name for your target (–resolve)

Time to wait while requesting an URL (–timeout)

By default, eyewitness waits for 7 seconds before it goes to take a screenshot of a new webpage. However, this can be changed with this option. For example, let’s change the timeout time to 1 second.

Add jitter (–jitter)

Using this option, we can randomize the URLs specified and add a random delay.

Add delay before taking a screenshot (–delay)

Using the option, we can add delay between opening of the navigator and taking a screenshot. This delay can be specified in seconds. For example, let’s add 10 seconds delay before taking screenshot.

Maximum retries (–max-retries)

This option specifies eyewitness tool how many retries it has to make if it fails to grab a screenshot on the first attempt.

Specify directory name for saving the report (-d)

This option is used to specify a directory name for saving the report.

Number of results to show on one page (–results)

By default, eyewitness shows output for all the URLs given as input on a single page. This option can be used to specify how many results to show per page. For example, let’s set it to show 1 result per page.

As you can see, now, all the results are shown on separate pages.

You don’t want to be prompted for viewing the report (–no-prompt)

If you don’t want eyewitness to prompt you to open the report after finishing its work, you can use this option.

Posted on December 5, 2024February 28, 2025 by Anamar Taknev

Complete guide to sherlock tool

Hello aspiring ethical hackers. In our previous blogpost, you learnt what is OSINT and its importance in ethical hacking, different types of OSINT etc. In this blogpost, you will learn about Sherlock, a OSINT tool.

Sherlock’s role in OSINT comes while gathering information from social media. It works by hunting for a particular username across various social networks. It does this by relying on social media site’s design feature to provide a URL with the username when a user registers an account on the social network.

Sherlock queries that URL and determines if the user has an account on that particular social network. It works by querying that URL and then uses that response to determine if there is a username. Sherlock can search for users on over 300 social networks that include Apple Developer, Arduino, Docker Hub, GitHub, GitLab, Facebook, Bitcoin Forum, CNET, Instagram, PlayStore, PyPi, Scribd, Telegram, TikTok, Tinder etc.

Let’s see how this tool works. For this I will be using Kali Linux which has Sherlock in its repository. You can install sherlock on Kali as shown below.

The simplest way to query a username with sherlock is by just supplying a username.

Searching on a particular social media site

Instead of searching for a username on all the social media accounts, you can search for a username’s presence even on a single site as shown below. For example let’s search for a username on site Twitch.

Searching for similar usernames

Sometimes, a username can be slightly different to a person we are searching for. We can also search for similar usernames with this tool as shown below.

Here, {?} will be replaced with – or hyphen or period (.).

Searching for multiple usernames at once

You can even search for multiple usernames with this tool as shown below. For example, let’s search for “hackercoolmagazine” and “hackercool” on Instagram.

Using a proxy while searching

You can even route your query through a proxy to remain anonymous.

Dump the entire HTTP response

We can even see the HTTP response of the site while searching using this option.

Time to call

By default, while querying for usernames, this tool waits for 60 seconds for response to the request it made. With this timeout option, this time can be changed as shown below. The value should be set in seconds.

Print all the output

By default, Sherlock only prints out the social network where the username was found. Using the option, we can see all the social networks this tool queries for and also the reason why it was not found.

Print only positives found

This option prints out all the social networks on which the username is found.

Browse

By setting this option, we can use Sherlock to view the job result page on browser.

Search NSFW sites too

By default, sherlock doesn’t query NSFW sites while searching for a username. When we set this option, it even queries NSFW sites for the particular username.

Writing the output to a file

Like any other tool, we can use Sherlock too to save the output to a file of our choice using the “-o” option as shown below.

Category: Hacking Tools