When it comes to penetration testing, having the right tools is essential. And Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) tools can be a gold mine with loads of information to offer that make penetration testing essential. We’ll be looking at the six best OSINT tools and how they can help with penetration testing.
Penetration testing basics:
Among all the different testing methods out there, penetration testing stands to be the most effective one for protecting systems, networks and applications against cyber-attacks. This is because it works by simulating attacks on the target environment to determine which attacks the system is prone to.
What is OSINT?
Open-Source Intelligence uses publicly available information to gather data. This information includes everything available from search engines, social media and other online platforms, as well as offline data such as phone books, company directories, and public records. OSINT tools collect this information to create a comprehensive view of the target environment.
There are many OSINT tools out there that can help you with security research or penetration testing. However, it is important to note that because of how easy it is to access and use these tools, they can also be used by attackers to gather information about your systems for malicious reasons. This means using such tools should always be done securely.
How do OSINT Tools Help With Penetration Testing?
There are plenty of uses for OSINT tools. Among these, software penetration testing has one of the most important applications when it comes to security and cybersecurity. This is because OSINT tools allow you as a penetration tester or an attacker to know more about your target environment. You can use them to gather information from publicly available sources such as social media posts, blogs and search engines, to find valuable data that will help pinpoint potential weaknesses within the system being tested.
The way OSINT works is by automatically collecting this publically available data and making it easy for you to access it all at once without having to spend hours looking through different platforms. The collected data is then organised so that you can simply browse through it until finding what you need.
How are OSINT Tools Different From Other Penetration Testing Tools?
OSINT tools use a variety of sources to collect the data they offer. They can be used for everything from active reconnaissance, where you actively search for information about your target environment through different platforms, to passive reconnaissance, which is where you gather data by simply listening in on conversations happening around the network and its traffic at any given time without actually searching or interacting with anything specific to make them aware of your presence.
While other tools scan the target environment for gathering information, OSINT tools get their information from public sources.
The 6 best OSINT tools for penetration testing
1. Shodan:
Shodan is a search engine that allows you to look for specific information on web servers, connected devices, routers and more. You can also use Shodan as an OSINT tool by looking up IP addresses so that they return the latest intelligence data associated with those addresses. It works similarly to Google but instead of searching through websites and content, Shodan searches for internet-connected devices.
2. TheHarvester:
This is a tool written in Python that allows you to gather emails, subdomains and names from different public sources such as search engines and PGP key servers. This data may be useful for penetration testing or cybersecurity research. It gathers data by searching through Google, Bing, LinkedIn pages of users on these platforms (as well as others), as well as through PGP key servers.
3. Maltego:
Maltego is a data mining and link analysis tool. It is used to map out relationships between entities such as people, companies, websites, domains and more. Maltego can be used for both offensive and defensive security research.
4. Spyse:
Spyse is a tool that allows you to search and exploit public websites for information gathering purposes. It can be used to find sensitive information such as login credentials, employee details, contact lists and more.
5. Recon-Ng:
Recon-Ng is a reconnaissance framework written in Python that helps you gather data about your target environment for penetration testing purposes. It is used to automate the process of information gathering, making it easier and faster for you to collect data from different sources.
6. NexVision:
NexVision is a tool that allows you to visualise data gathered through OSINT to make better sense of it all. This can help you find relationships between entities and understand how they’re connected, making it easier for you to pinpoint vulnerabilities in your target environment. It gathers information from the Dark Web and Social Media as well.
Conclusion
OSINT tools allow you as a penetration tester or an attacker to know more about your target environment. You can use them to gather information from publicly available sources such as social media posts, blogs and search engines, which makes it easier for you to penetrate the target environment. OSINT tools are used by both attackers and penetration testers to identify vulnerabilities within a system or network so that they can exploit them before someone else does.
