Hey there amazing hackers what are you guys doing i am fine and here with a new article for you guys let’s do some OSINT using photon scanner i will be teaching you about the new tool photon scanner which will help you while doing osint so let us get started
What is Photon Scanner ? Let’s do some OSINT using Photon Scanner
Photon Scanner is a open source tool that is information gathering tool that reduces the time consumption activity and helps with the target biodata.
Features of Photon Scanner
Data Extraction
Photon scanner is an excellent spider if spiders and greps the foloowing information inlcuding urls, intel, files, secret keys, subdomains , strings and dns realted data.
Timing and Effectiviness
The tool is quite effective and saves the time of users. Has wide range of features
Plugins
External plugins including wayback, dnsdumpster and exporter exist with the tool
Requirements For installtion
To install this tool you need to be running python3 on your system. To install python3 you can check this link out.
https://www.python.org/
Or you ca install python3 on kali using the apt package manager
sudo apt-get install python3
Using Photon Scanner
Installing Requests
As the tool utilises this python library we need to install this python library which can be done using pip3. Type
pip3 install requests
After the download has been successfully installed on your terminal window type the following command to clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/s0md3v/Photon.git
And move to the directory by tusing the following command
cd Photon
Now we can run the tool using python3 on your terminal so let’s use the -h switch to peek the help menu
python3 photon.py -hBasic Scanning
To perform a basic scan using the tool use the -u switch to determine the target for example let’s perform a scan on hackingblogs.com so the command that we’ll be using in order to scan the host we’ll type
python3 photon.py -u hackingblogs.com
Generating Visual DNS- Map uing the tool
Photon has the ability to generate a visual dns-map of everything connected to domain. To perform this we’ll be using the –dns flag for example let’s generate for hackingblogs.com we’ll be using the following command
python3 photon.py -u https://hackingblogs.com/ --dns
As you see the tool is quite fast and has successfully generated the report for hackingblogs.com. The dns map shows the mapping of the domain consisting of mx records and much more which is very valuable for hackers while recon.
Grabbing Keys and Email Addressess
So we will be grabbing any email address or keys in the target site also we will see hpw threads can be increased using the tool use the following command
python3 photon.py -u https://www.hackingblogs.com/ --keys -t 10 -l 3Here this command will return the emails as intel here 3 shows the level we want to increase depthness of scanning and 10 is the number of open threads we want to use for crawling.As you can see the scan did return a few data
Conclusion
So as you see the tool is really a mouthful, has variety of features i have covered the ones that you will mostly use and is of your usage but go forawrd and try the other features and it will really be intresting to scan more target.So that is it for this blog and i’ll be seeing you in the next blog till then
Keep learning Keep Hacking.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What is OSINT?
A: OSINT stands for Open Source Intelligence, which involves collecting information from publicly available sources such as the internet, social media, and news outlets.
Q: How can OSINT be helpful for hackers?
A: Hackers can use OSINT to gather information about their targets, such as email addresses, social media profiles, and other personal details that can be used for social engineering attacks.
Q: What is a photon scanner?
A: A photon scanner is a tool used by hackers to covertly scan and capture data from a target’s computer or network using laser beams.
Q: How does a photon scanner work?
A: A photon scanner works by sending laser beams to a target’s computer or network, which can detect and capture information such as passwords, encryption keys, and sensitive data.
Q: Is using a photon scanner legal?
A: No, using a photon scanner to gather information without permission is illegal and violates privacy laws.
Q: What are the potential risks of using a photon scanner?
A: Using a photon scanner can result in legal consequences, including fines, imprisonment, and damage to one’s reputation.
Q: How can hackers protect themselves from being scanned by a photon scanner?
A: Hackers can protect themselves by using encryption, firewalls, and other security measures to prevent unauthorized access to their data.
Q: Are there any ethical ways to use OSINT for hacking purposes?
A: Ethical hackers and security professionals may use OSINT to conduct vulnerability assessments and penetration tests with permission from the target organization.
Q: Can OSINT be used for legitimate security purposes?
A: Yes, OSINT can be used by security professionals to gather information about potential threats, vulnerabilities, and risks to help protect organizations from cyber attacks.
Q: What are some best practices for using OSINT and photon scanners responsibly?
A: Some best practices include obtaining permission before scanning or collecting information, respecting individuals’ privacy, and complying with relevant laws and regulations.
