How to Gather Information Using Kali Linux
As you’ve learned in previous chapters, information gathering is an important aspect of
hacking and penetration testing. Your chances of succeeding will significantly increase if
you have a lot of data about your target. In this part of the book, you’ll learn how to use
Kali Linux in collecting information.
TheHarvester – The Basics
Kali Linux has an extensive collection of “reconnaissance” tools. To keep this section
short, let’s focus on a tool called “TheHarvester”. TheHarvester is a Python-based tool that
can collect important information on your behalf. It can grab usernames, email addresses,
hostnames, and subdomains from various sources.
The Process
Access your Kali Linux computer and open a terminal. Then, type “theharvester” to
launch the reconnaissance tool. TheHarvester comes as a built-in tool for the latest Kali
versions, so you probably don’t need to download anything. If your computer doesn’t have
this program, however, you can visit https://github.com/laramies/theHarvester to
download it.
Here are the steps that you need to take:
1. Use the following syntax:
theHarvester –d [www.sampleurl.com] –l 300 –b [name of search engine]
Here’s an example:
theHarvester –d facebook.com –l 300 –b bing
2. Just replace www.sampleurl.com with the URL of your target website. Then,
indicate the search engine that you want to use. The result that you’ll get depends
on the information that the search engine can pull. If you want to grab all of the
available information regarding your target, type “all” at the end of the code
As you’ve learned in previous chapters, information gathering is an important aspect of
hacking and penetration testing. Your chances of succeeding will significantly increase if
you have a lot of data about your target. In this part of the book, you’ll learn how to use
Kali Linux in collecting information.
TheHarvester – The Basics
Kali Linux has an extensive collection of “reconnaissance” tools. To keep this section
short, let’s focus on a tool called “TheHarvester”. TheHarvester is a Python-based tool that
can collect important information on your behalf. It can grab usernames, email addresses,
hostnames, and subdomains from various sources.
The Process
Access your Kali Linux computer and open a terminal. Then, type “theharvester” to
launch the reconnaissance tool. TheHarvester comes as a built-in tool for the latest Kali
versions, so you probably don’t need to download anything. If your computer doesn’t have
this program, however, you can visit https://github.com/laramies/theHarvester to
download it.
Here are the steps that you need to take:
1. Use the following syntax:
theHarvester –d [www.sampleurl.com] –l 300 –b [name of search engine]
Here’s an example:
theHarvester –d facebook.com –l 300 –b bing
2. Just replace www.sampleurl.com with the URL of your target website. Then,
indicate the search engine that you want to use. The result that you’ll get depends
on the information that the search engine can pull. If you want to grab all of the
available information regarding your target, type “all” at the end of the code