Prerequisites/dependencies
Python 2.7 if running on *nix as well as M2Crypto,
CherryPy, netaddr, dnspython, and Mako modules
Windows version comes as a pre-packaged executable, no
dependencies
Introduction
All good penetration tests and threat assessments should
be initiated with what you’ve seen referred to in toolsmith as OSINT, or open
source intelligence gathering. This practice contributes greatly to collecting
a useful list of targets of opportunity. One key element to remember though,
the bad guys are conducting this same activity against you and your
Internet-facing assets too. It’s probably best then that you develop your own
OSINT practice so you can find the information you may not wish to, or even
know, you are exposing. Steve Micallef’s SpiderFoot is another tool in the
arsenal specific to this cause. You may already be aware that the four phases
of a web application security assessment, as defined using the SamuraiWTF
distribution, are recon, mapping, discovery, and exploitation. The SANS GIAC
Certified Web Application Penetration Tester (GWAPT) curriculum follows suit
given that Secure Idea’s Kevin Johnson contributed heavily (developed) to both.
SpiderFoot nicely blends both recon and mapping as part of its feature set. As
we consider legal, privacy, and ethics issues for the March ISSA Journal, OSINT
and reconnaissance become interesting and related topics. I have, on more than
one occasion, discovered very damaging data via OSINT tactics that, if in the
wrong hands, could have been very damaging. When you consider findings of this
nature with regard to ethics and the legality you may find yourself in an
immediate quandary. Are you obligated to report findings that you know could
cause harm to the target if left unmitigated? What if during your analysis you
come into possession of classified or proprietary information that having in
your possession could create legal challenges for you? Imagine findings of this
caliber and it becomes easy to recognize why you should always conduct
intelligence gathering and footprinting on your own interests before the wrong
people do it for you. SpiderFoot, as a tool for just such purposes, allows you
to understand “as much as possible about a given target in order to perform a
more complete security penetration test.” For large networks, this can be a
daunting task, and SpiderFoot automates this process significantly, allowing
penetration testers to focus their efforts on security testing itself.
Steve provided us with some SpiderFoot history as well as
insight on what he finds useful and interesting. He originally wrote SpiderFoot
as a C# .NET application in 2005, purely as an exercise to learn C#, having
been inspired by BiDiBLAH’s developers from Sensepost (who went on to create
Maltego), thinking he could make a lighter open source version. For seven years
that was Steve’s first and only release until he decided to resume development
again in 2012. His work on next generation versions have led SpiderFoot to be
cross platform (Python), far more extensible, functional, with a much nicer user
interface (UI).
Steve’s current challenge with SpiderFoot is deciding
what cool functionality to implement next, his to-do list is ever growing and
there are a numerous features he’d love to extend it to include. He typically
balances his time between UI/analysis functionality versus new checks to identify
more items to aid the penetration tester. The aforementioned OSINT (Open Source
Intelligence) community also continues to produce new sources which in turn inspire
Steve to build new SpiderFoot checks.
He finds it interesting testing out a new module, and
actually finding insightful items out there on the Internet simply during the
development process. Steve’s favorite functionality at the moment is
identifying owned netblocks, and co-hosted sites. Owned Netblocks indicates entire IP ranges that an
organization owns, which enables penetration testers to more completely scan
the perimeter of a target. Co-hosted Sites
shows you any websites on the same server as the target, which can also be
revealing. If your target is hosted on the same server as sites identified as
being malicious by the malicious site checker, or the blacklist checker plug-in
it could potentially indicate that your target is hosted on a compromised
server.
As you read this it’s likely that the following planned
enhancements are available in SpiderFoot or will be soon:
·
2.1.2 (early March)
o SOCKS
proxy support
o Real-time
scan progress viewer
o Identify
scan quality impacting issue
o Autoshun
(www.autoshun.org) lookup as part of malicious checks
o SANS
(isc.sans.edu) lookup as part of malicious checks (queue the Austin Powers
voice: “Yeah, baby!”)
o Update
GeoIP checker
·
2.1.3 (mid April)
o VirusTotal,
SHODAN, Facebook, Xing, Pastebin and GitHub plug-ins
Note that when you pull SpiderFoot from GitHub, you are downloading a beta version of the next release, as Steve commits
new functionality there periodically in preparation for the next
version. For instance, SOCKS functionality is in the GitHub repository right now
but not in the packaged released version (2.1.1.).
SpiderFoot is a great project with a strong development
roadmap, so let’s get down to business and explore.
Quick installation
notes
Windows installation is an absolute no brainer; download the
package, unpack it, execute sf.exe,
and browse to http://127.0.0.1:5001. All
dependencies are met including a standalone Python interpreter, so you may find
this option optimal.
Linux (I installed it on SamuraiWTF) users need to settle
a few dependencies easily solved with the following few steps that assume pip is already installed:
sudo apt-get
install swig
sudo pip install
mako cherrypy netaddr M2Crypto dnspython
git clone
https://github.com/smicallef/spiderfoot.git
cd spiderfoot/
sudo python
./sf.py 0.0.0.0:9999
The last line indicates that you’d like SpiderFoot to
bind to all addresses (including localhost) and listen on port 9999. You can
define your preferred port or just accept default if undefined (5001). Steve
reminds us on his installation page to be
cautious regarding exposing SpiderFoot to hostile networks (Intranet, security
conference wireless) given that there is currently no authentication scheme.
SpiderFoot
unleashed
The SpiderFoot UI is, how shall I say, incredibly simple,
intuitive, and obvious even. To start a scan…wait for it…select New Scan. Figure 1 represents a scan
being kicked off on my domain (don’t do it) as defined by the By Module view.
 |
| FIGURE 1: Kicking off a new scan with SpiderFoot |
 |
| FIGURE 2: SpiderFoot Scans view |
If need be (default settings
work quite well), you can tune the actual scan configuration as well via
Settings, with attention to how you’d like to tune storage, search engines,
port scanning, spidering, TLD searches (see Figure 3), amongst others.
 |
| FIGURE 3: SpiderFoot Settings view |
 |
| FIGURE 4: SpiderFoot results and export functionality |
As I navigated all the
results, I was intrigued to find a hit for URL
(Uses Flash) simply because I didn’t recall any Flash features on my
site. I immediately chuckled when I reviewed the result as it
was specific to a Flash video I’d
created for the 2008 ISSA Northwest Regional Conference wherein I ripped on the
now defunct Hacker Safe trustmark for indicating that their customer’s sites
were “hacker safe” when, in fact, they were not. Oh, the good old days.
Want to visualize your
results? No problem, you can choose from a bubble view of data elements or the
discovery path. Figure 5 represents the discovery path for Social Media Presence findings. Hover
over each entity for details specific to initial target type, the source
module, and the related result.
 |
| FIGURE 5: SpiderFoot visualizes a discovery path |
SpiderFoot will absolutely
uncover nuggets you may have long forgotten about and may want to remove as
they are potentially vulnerable (outdated plugins, modules, etc.) or
unnecessarily/unintentionally exposed. I found an old dashboard I’d built by
hand eons ago with long dead extenal JavaScript calls that had no business
still being available. “Be gone!”, I said. That is what SpiderFoot is all
about. Add it to the tool collection for penetration tests and OSINT
expeditions; you won’t be disappointed.
In Conclusion
Steve Micallef’s SpiderFoot is functionally simple but
feature rich and getting better all the time as it is well built and
maintained. Follow @binarypool on Twitter and keep an eye out for timely and
regular releases.
Ping me via email if you have questions or suggestions
for topic via russ at holisticinfosec dot org or hit me on Twitter @holisticinfosec.
Cheers…until next month.
Acknowledgements
Steve Micallef (@binarypool),
Spiderfoot author
