Google HACKING (use google search to HACK!)

About this video

Chuck introduces Google hacking, also called Google dorking, as a passive reconnaissance technique ethical hackers use to find information that was exposed publicly by accident. He explains the legal boundary: searching for and viewing publicly indexed material is presented as passive recon, while using what you find against a target, or switching to active recon such as social engineering without permission, crosses the line. He demonstrates search operators using Starbucks as an example, including site: to limit results to one domain, inurl: and intext: to find keywords such as admin, intitle: to find pages like logins by their title, and filetype: to surface specific files such as PDFs. He then walks through the Google Hacking Database, a collection of ready-made search strings organized by category, showing examples aimed at openly accessible webcams, files that can contain database credentials, log files with failed login attempts, Windows registry files, Nessus vulnerability scan reports, and remote desktop login pages. He closes by showing how the same approach profiles people and technology stacks, for example using site searches on LinkedIn to identify a company’s network engineers and the tools listed in their profiles, and briefly demonstrates theHarvester to collect emails and subdomains for a domain. A sponsored ITProTV ethical hacking course is promoted throughout, with a stated 30% off offer via his code.

Key takeaways

• Search operators such as site:, inurl:, intext:, intitle: and filetype: turn ordinary Google searches into targeted recon for exposed pages and files.
• The Google Hacking Database collects categorized, ready-made dorks for finding things like open webcams, credential files, logs and vulnerability reports.
• Passive recon using publicly indexed information is framed as legal; using the findings against a target or doing active recon without permission is where it becomes illegal.
• Employee profiles on LinkedIn and job boards can reveal a target’s likely technology stack, which helps an ethical hacker plan later testing.
• Tools such as theHarvester complement dorking by gathering emails, subdomains and host information for a chosen domain.

Episode details: published June 28, 2020 · 16:56 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. Business results and any income figures mentioned are NetworkChuck’s own claims, shared for education — they are not typical or guaranteed.

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