30 tips for ethical hackers:
Use Reconnaissance Tools: Tools like Nmap, Nikto, or Shodan can help with network and host enumeration.
DNS Enumeration: Use tools like DNSRecon, DNSenum, and Fierce to perform DNS enumeration.
Subdomain Enumeration: Use tools like Amass, Sublist3r, or SubFinder to discover subdomains.
Find Hidden Directories: Use tools like DirBuster, Gobuster, or Dirsearch to find hidden directories or files.
Check the Robots.txt File: This file often contains paths that developers did not want to be indexed by search engines, which could provide useful clues.
Email Enumeration: Tools like theHarvester, Recon-ng, or Hunter can be used for email enumeration.
Check the Website Archive: Use tools like the Wayback Machine to look at older versions of the website.
Check for DNS Transfer Zones: This can reveal useful information about the domain structure.
Port Scanning: Use Nmap or Masscan for port scanning. Don't forget to scan all 65535 ports.
Inspect JavaScript Files: JavaScript files might contain useful API endpoints, comments, or variables.
Monitor GitHub Repositories: Look for sensitive data like passwords, tokens, and API keys left in code or commit histories.
IP Range Scanning: If the company's IP range is known, scan it to discover additional assets.
Google Dorks: Use Google dorks to find indexed information about the target that Google's spiders might have crawled.
Social Media Scanning: You can gather information about a target from their social media accounts.
Check Certificate Transparency Logs: Use tools like https://t.co/qyWccMfUKW to identify all SSL certificates issued for a particular domain.
Check ASN (Autonomous System Number): Identify associated IP ranges.
Use Search Engines: Apart from Google, use search engines like Bing, Baidu, or DuckDuckGo for finding potentially overlooked data.
Check Bug Bounty Platforms: Previous disclosed reports can provide useful information.
Use Public Datasets: Websites like CommonCrawl and Rapid7โs OpenData have a lot of data about websites.
Participate in Bug Bounty Forums: Other bug bounty hunters may share useful insights and techniques.
Fingerprinting: Identify the software and versions used by your target.
Check Error Messages: They can reveal useful information about the underlying technology.
Check RSS/Atom feeds: They might contain interesting URLs or endpoints.
Check Metadata of Files: Documents and images can contain useful metadata.
Code Review: If the source code is available, review it for potential security misconfigurations or vulnerabilities.
Check for Debug Parameters: Some websites might reveal useful information when debug=1 or similar parameters are used.
Check X-Robots-Tag Headers: They might reveal disallowed directories or files.
Use API Enumeration Tools: Tools like Postman and Swagger can help explore APIs.
Test Different User Agents: Some websites might serve different content based on the User Agent.
Check for CORS Misconfigurations: Misconfigured Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) can sometimes lead to vulnerabilities.