Google Hacking | Footprinting Methods and Tools

A useful tactic in footprinting a target was popularized mainly in late 2004 by a guy named Johnny Long, who was part of an IT security team at his job. While performing pen tests and ethical hacking, he started paying attention to how the search strings worked in Google. The search engine has always had additional operators designed to allow you to fine-tune your search string. What Mr. Long did was simply apply that logic for a more nefarious purpose. 

Suppose, for example, instead of just looking for a web page on boat repair or searching for an image of a cartoon cat, you decided to tell the search engine, “Hey, do you think you can look for any systems that are using Remote Desktop Web Connection?” Or how about, “Can you please show me any MySQL history pages so I can try to lift a password or two?” Amazingly enough, search engines can do just that for you, and more. The term this practice has become known by is Google hacking. 

Google hacking involves manipulating a search string with additional specific operators to search for vulnerabilities. Table below describes advanced operators for Google hack search strings. 

Innumerable websites are available to help you with Google hack strings. For example, from the Google Hacking Database (a site operated by Mr. Johnny Long and Hackers for Charity, www.hackersforcharity.org/ghdb/), try this string from wherever you are right now:

Basically we’re telling Google to go look for web pages that have TSWEB in the URL (indicating a remote access connection page), and you want to see only those that are running the default HTML page (default installs are common in a host of different areas and usually make things a lot easier for an attacker). I think you may be surprised by the results—I even saw one page where an admin had edited the text to include the logon information.

And if Google hacking weren’t easy enough, there are a variety of tools to make it even more powerful. Tools such as SiteDigger (www.mcafee.com) use Google hack searches and other methods to dig up all sorts of information and vulnerabilities. MetaGoofil (www.edge-security.com) uses Google hacks and cache to find unbelievable amounts of information hidden in the meta tags of publicly available documents. Find the browser and search engine of your choice and look for “Google hack tools.” You’ll find more than a few available for play.

Another note on Google hacking: it’s not as easy to pull off as it once was. Google, for reasons I will avoid discussing here because it angers me to no end, has decided it needs to police search results to prevent folks from using the search engine as it was intended to be used. As you can see from Figure below, and probably from your own Google hacking attempts in learning this opportunity, Google will, from time to time, throw up a CAPTCHA if it believes you’re a “bot” or trying to use the search engine for