SHODAN:- Shodan is a scanner that finds devices connected over the internet. Shodan can find devices like traffic lights, security cameras, home heating devices, and baby monitors, ethical hacking consultants assure. This web scanner can also find SCADA systems like -gas stations, and nuclear power plants. Shodan tells the physical location of connected devices over the internet.
Ethical hacking researcher says that Shodan can create violations of user's privacy because it pings almost any device connected to the internet without taking users permission.
To use Shodan go to: https://www.shodan.io/
- To create an account go to https://account.shodan.io/register
- Shodan search engine can also be used without signing up. Signing up is not compulsory.
- Enter the necessary details- your username, password, and email for signing up in Shodan.
- After creating an account sign in with your credentials.
- After singing in, shodan will open. Now you can explore Shodan.
- After creating your account in Shodan. Sign in to your account and Shodan will show your account api key. For security reasons, the key has been hidden (ZoxxxxxxPFmYHJvSWhKixxxxxxxxxxHmT).
- You can also search any website/IP address simply enter your target name and as you see below it will show the details of the target, mentioning ethical hacking investigators.
Fun with SHODAN:-
- The below site in the screenshot is the most popular for testing your hacking skills. (hackthissite.org)
- After typing the target website, open ports and the IP address have been found which can be used in footprinting and reconnaissance.
SHODAN FEATURES:-
Shodan offers many great features to search for. Normal users can easily explore Shodan. Most of the pentesters use Shodan to find vulnerabilities, according to ethical hacking courses.
There are many keywords to search in Shodan and here are some of the keywords that have been used to show you how Shodan works:-
- VSAT – Mainly works in boats/ship tracker to detect boats/ship location.
- Cameras – Shows the open IP’s of the web cameras which are used in surveillance.
- Exploring the others like – databases, video game servers, and Industrial Control Systems.
- Databases – show the databases with a lack of security.
- Video Game Servers – shows the running open servers of the games.
- ICS (Industrial Control System) – shows the open ICS systems which are vulnerable.
SEARCHING BOATS/SHIPS ON SHODAN:-
Boats/ships use VSAT (Very-Small-Aperture Terminal) which uses satellite communication to communicate with the outer world. VSAT uses IPv4 for the communication. As Shodan pings all the IP addresses over the internet, so in this pinging process shodan also lists the IPs associated with VSAT communication on the boat. Now in the below screens, you will see how a normal internet user can search the boats in the sea.
===================SNIP=================
- if you type VSAT in the search engine of Shodan you will find there are many unprotected IP’s of the ship.
- You can see in the above screenshots, the open ports and IP address of the ship which can be used in other hacking activities.
- You can also check the location of the ship by typing the longitude and latitude of the ship in the Google search engine.
SEARCHING LIVE CAMS:-
You can search the live cameras with open ports. For searching the live webcams. go to Shodan search engine and type webcams.
For example:-
- For searching webcams, you can type webcams or the query of the webcam which mostly URL path used by IP camera
- So we will search /cgi-bin/guestimage.html
- The above URL path is normally used by Mobotix company which makes IP surveillance cameras.
===================SNIP================
- After searching through the query, there is an IP – 166.161.197.253 which we will examine further.
- After clicking on the IP, You can see the open port and the IP address of myvzw.com from the organization Verizon Wireless.
- Now to open the IP address type the above IP address with the port into your browser 166.161.197.253:5001 as shown below.
- As you can see the targeted IP camera is working but it is night over there. Now we will try to find some previous recordings to check if the camera is working.
- Click on the menu market red in the above screenshot.
- Go to the event list.
- As there are many previous records. For one of the records, we will show you the day mode.
- One of the previous records as you can see that this surveillance camera is open to exploit.
Another surveillance camera is found in the list.
- When we opened the IP address with the listed ports we found that:-
- Beach surveillance camera.
- The above screenshots are from the Hotel wellness resort (Riva degli etruschi).
Another example:-
- Opening the IP address 89.203.117.200 shows live surveillance.
- The above screenshot is from Czec Republic. A local street location from live cam.
OTHER FEATURES IN SHODAN:-
Shodan gives many options to explore.
- By clicking on explore, you can find the most popular searches that have been done in Shodan by other users. And shows the most common and recent searches.
- These common searches can be used easily to exploit them as they lack security.
SEARCHING VIDEO GAMES:-
- You can open listed game servers to check IP addresses.
- Here we have chosen the target.
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- Minecraft servers can be used in port scanning and other hacking activities.
- The above-listed vulnerabilities can be used can be used by remote attackers to cause denial-of-service attacks. And the vulnerability could allow to get into the directories, as per ethical hacking specialists.
SEARCHING DATABASES:-
- Choose the database.
- Selecting the target.
- In the above screenshot, you can use the IP address with the listed ports to open the db page.
- It shows the graph of the memory process which can be used in the initial phase of penetration testing.
- As you can see in the above screenshots, the above admin details can be used in other hacking activities.
SEARCHING ICS (INDUSTRIAL CONTROL SYSTEM):-
- Select the target.
===================SNIP==================
- The above IP address and open ports can be used in port scanning.
- In the above screenshots, the listed vulnerabilities can cause massive attacks on the target. Denial-of-service attacks can be used by attackers. Remote execution can also be done on this vulnerable website.
USING THE GOOGLE CHROME EXTENSION:-
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- For quick and fast information, you can also use the Google Chrome addon which is available in the Google Chrome appstore. To install the Shodan addon in Google Chrome go to: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/shodan/jjalcfnidlmpjhdfepjhjbhnhkbgleap?utm_source=chrome-ntp-icon
- After installing the addon, whenever you open the target site. Shodan addon will start its query and will show the target website's open ports/IP address.
MOST POPULAR SEARCHES:-
Shodan offers many features like searching any open cams, and searching for routers with default security methods.
============SNIP============
- In the above screenshot, here are some of the listed open devices which can be used in hacking activities. The most popular searches are easy to find and can be exploited by script kiddie also.
PAID PLANS:-
- You can also use the paid plans if you working as a professional pentester because Shodan provides detailed information for the target.
OTHER RESOURCES:-
You can also use some other resources to check the ship's latitude and longitude.
- https://shiptracker.shodan.io
- https://www.vesselfinder.com
- https://www.marinetraffic.com
These websites provide AIS (Automatic Identification System) that uses a transponder device to receive the signal to a satellite and then transmit those signals to a receiver to tell their location, but Shodan ship tracker is more than that.
- As you can see in the above screenshots, two websites show the ship location by using the AIS system. Normal users can check to know the location of the website. These two websites show the longitude and latitude of the ship.
