#8 Subdomain Enumeration —How to find Subdomains of any Domain (2024)

#8 Subdomain Enumeration —How to find Subdomains of any Domain (2)

Hello, I have come today with a very useful topic of recon. In this blog we will see how to find Subdomain of any target. So, lets start.

A subdomain is, as the name would suggest, an additional section of your main Domain name. You create subdomains to help organize and navigate to different sections of your main website. Within your main Domain, you can have as many subdomains as necessary to get to all of the different pages of your website.

#8 Subdomain Enumeration —How to find Subdomains of any Domain (3)

It is one of the most crucial parts of the reconnaissance phase while performing a security assessment. Subdomain Enumeration is a process of finding sub-domains of one or more root domains.

Why we need Subdomain Enumeration?

Subdomain Enumeration helps to create a scope of security assessment by revealing Domains/Subdomains of a target organization. It increases the chance of finding vulnerabilities. And it helps us in finding the web applications that might be forgotten/left unattended by the organization for the maintenance or other reasons and may lead to the disclosure of critical vulnerabilities.

By search engines

Search engines like Google supports various advanced search operators to refine search queries. These operators are often referred to as Google Dorks. We can use site: operator in Google search to find all the Subdomains that Google has found for a Domain. Lets take an example on “site:vulnweb.com”.

#8 Subdomain Enumeration —How to find Subdomains of any Domain (4)

By online sites

These are some online sites who find the Subdomains of any Domain.

  1. https://scantrics.io/subdomain-scanner/
  2. https://site-analyzer.pro/services-seo/site-all-subdomains/
  3. https://wikihak.com/Subdomains/Subdomains-scanner.php
  4. https://subdomainfinder.c99.nl/

Lets take an example

#8 Subdomain Enumeration —How to find Subdomains of any Domain (5)

By Subfinder(in Kali machine)

Subfinder is a Subdomain discovery tool that discovers valid Subdomains for websites by using passive online sources. It has a simple modular architecture and is optimized for speed.

#8 Subdomain Enumeration —How to find Subdomains of any Domain (6)

Installation Subfinder:- Open Kali Terminal

sudo git clone https://github.com/projectdiscovery/subfinder.git

And will be installed. Now open new terminal and type this command

subfinder -d "your target domain"

I am taking “example.com”.

#8 Subdomain Enumeration —How to find Subdomains of any Domain (7)

By Sublist3r(in Kali machine)

Sublister is a tool designed in python and uses OSINT in order to enumerate Subdomains of websites. It helps pen-testers in collecting and gathering Subdomains for a Domain which is their target.

#8 Subdomain Enumeration —How to find Subdomains of any Domain (8)

For installation of Sublist3r checkout this link https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/what-is-sublist3r-and-how-to-use-it/

And will be installed. Now open new terminal and type this command

sublist3r -d "your target domain"

I am taking “vulnweb.com”.

#8 Subdomain Enumeration —How to find Subdomains of any Domain (9)

By Amass(in Kali machine)

This package contains a tool to help information security professionals perform network mapping of attack surfaces and perform external asset discovery using open source information gathering and active reconnaissance techniques.

#8 Subdomain Enumeration —How to find Subdomains of any Domain (10)

Installation Amass:- Open Kali Terminal and write these commands

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install amass

And will be installed. Write the Subdomain Enumeration command.

amass enum -d "your target domain"

I am again taking “vulnweb.com”.

#8 Subdomain Enumeration —How to find Subdomains of any Domain (11)

Brute Force Subdomain By ffuf(in Kali machine)

ffuf is a fest web fuzzer written in Go that allows typical directory discovery, virtual host discovery (without DNS records) and GET and POST parameter fuzzing.

#8 Subdomain Enumeration —How to find Subdomains of any Domain (12)

Installation ffuf:- Open Kali Terminal and write this

git clone https://github.com/ffuf/ffuf ; cd ffuf ; go get ; go build

And will be installed. In this method we are performing brute force, so we also need domain wordlist. You can download the Subdomain wordlist by Google and save wordlists folder. Now see an example on “vulnweb.com”

Command,

ffuf -w /path/to/wordlist -u https://FUZZ.target

-w means wordlist, -u means target URL and FUZZ is the part that has to be brute force.

#8 Subdomain Enumeration —How to find Subdomains of any Domain (13)

Here are some methods to find subdomain, hope you will have learned something new that’s all for today. Thank you for reading. Be an #Ethical Hacker and stay safe.

P.S. I am looking for a job, my email is uttamgupta1802@gmail.com.

#8 Subdomain Enumeration —How to find Subdomains of any Domain (2024)

FAQs

How to find all subdomains of a domain name? ›

WhoisXML Subdomain Lookup is a part of the Domain Research Suite (DRS). It helps you discover a comprehensive list of subdomains associated with your main domain in just one click. With its extensive database that is updated daily, WhoisXML Subdomain Lookup offers up-to-date information about subdomains.

How do I find subdomains of a domain using NsLookup? ›

Find Subdomains of a Domain with NsLookup:

Replace “example.com” with the domain name you are interested in. This command will return a list of the authoritative name servers for the domain, which can often include the subdomains.

How do I find out if a domain has a subdomain? ›

There are several ways to find subdomains:
  1. Manually, by using the site:* operator in Google.
  2. By checking DNS records using the nslookup command.
  3. By using our online subdomain scanner or similar tools.

How to find the subdomain of a website online? ›

How our Subdomain Finder works
  1. DNS records (NS, MX, TXT, AXFR)
  2. Enumeration using built-in wordlists, plus the option to use your own.
  3. External APIs search.
  4. Public search engine queries (Google search, Bing)
  5. Word mutation techniques.
  6. Searching in SSL certificates.
  7. Parsing HTML links.
  8. Reverse DNS on target IP ranges.

How to search subdomains in Google? ›

Google Dorking

Google Dorks are one of the best ways to find extenstive information about a target. Google's search operators make it easy to narrow down the search to find more subdomains. We can use the "site" operator in the search bar to find all the subdomains that Google has indexed for a domain.

How do I find all the subsites of a website? ›

You can usually locate it in the root or footer section of the website. For example, the XML sitemap URL could be “www.example.com/sitemap.xml“. Once you click on the sitemap, you will find all pages & subpages of a website. You can use different sitemap generation tools if you don't have an existing sitemap.

Are subdomains included with the domain? ›

Subdomains are used to expand the use of a single domain, these do not need to be purchased separately to your domain; if you own a domain then you can add a subdomain to this. This method is commonly used for Moodle and Totara site setups.

What is subdomain enumeration? ›

Sub-domain enumeration is the process of finding sub-domains for one or more domains. It helps to broader the attack surface, find hidden applications, and forgotten subdomains. Note: Vulnerabilities tend to be present across multiple domains and applications of the same organization.

How many subdomains does a domain have? ›

Each domain name can have up to 500 subdomains. You can also add multiple levels of subdomains, such as info.blog.yoursite.com. A subdomain can be up to 255 characters long, but if you have multiple levels in your subdomain, each level can only be 63 characters long.

How do I see all DNS records for a domain and subdomain? ›

How to check the DNS records for a specific domain? Using a terminal and the command nslookup is the most effective way to search a domain's DNS records. On almost all operating systems, this command works perfectly and displays all DNS records for the domain.

What is a subdomain of an existing domain? ›

A subdomain is a prefix added to your original domain name, like a domain name within a domain name, usually following subdomain.example.com. They behave very similarly to an addon domain and are often created to separate your website's different sections, such as blog.example.com or store.example.com.

How do I verify a sub domain? ›

you can verify your subdomain to be used in Google Search Console by linking your account to Google Analytics. This way you avoid customizing the theme of your help center. Go to www.google.com/analytics and set up a property within your Google Analytics account for your subdomain.

What is the difference between a subdomain and a sub domain? ›

A subdomain compartmentalizes your website so you can establish specific content types that are distinct from your root domain. On the other hand, a subdirectory is a pathway within your site. Subdirectories are a level within the domain's hierarchy. Subdirectories branch off from the subdomain they belong to.

What search phrase can be used to find subdomains of a website? ›

There are some subdomains that are defined for virtually every domain name, such as www, and others that are very common, like shop or mail. But by going through and trying a DNS query using `dig`, `nslookup`, or `host` for as many possible subdomains, you might find some hidden ones.

What are common URL subdomains? ›

Best Subdomain Example Names
  • www.yourdomain.com – Main URL.
  • www.yourdomain.com/blog – Blog URL.
  • www.yourdomain/lp – Landing page URL, will need to manually ad lp/ for each post.

What is a subfinder? ›

subfinder is a subdomain enumeration tool written in the Go programming language. Subfinder is used for discovering passive subdomains of websites by using digital sources like Censys, Chaos, Recon. dev, Shodan, Spyse, Virustotal, and many other passive online sources.

What tool to use to find subdomains? ›

Top 10 Subdomain Finders for Great Website Reconnaissance
  • Sublist3r. Sublist3r is a python-based tool for listing subdomains of a website. ...
  • Amass. Amass is a command line tool that can find subdomains by crawling web pages, search engines, and passive DNS sources. ...
  • Subfinder. ...
  • Knockpy. ...
  • Subbrute. ...
  • Aquatone. ...
  • Recon-ng. ...
  • Subdomainizer.
Mar 11, 2023

What is Google dorks for subdomain enumeration? ›

Google Dorking

Google Dorking is a passive subdomain enumeration technique using Google's advanced search operators, like "site:" to find information about a target, including subdomains.

Does Google see subdomains as separate sites? ›

Google treats subdomains as distinct websites. Which means they crawl and index subdomains separately. As a result, you may have to work on gaining backlinks for each subdomain separately to improve their rankings.

How to list all DNS records in nslookup? ›

Using nslookup online is very simple. Enter a domain name in the search bar above and hit 'enter'. This will take you to an overview of DNS records for the domain name you specified.

How do I find all available domains? ›

To check domain name availability, just type it into GoDaddy's search bar and we'll tell you immediately if it is available or if someone else already owns it.

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