- Tactics
- Reconnaissance
- Platforms
- PRE
- Reference
- attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1593.002
Description
Adversaries may use search engines to collect information about victims that can be used during targeting. Search engine services typical crawl online sites to index context and may provide users with specialized syntax to search for specific keywords or specific types of content (i.e. filetypes).(Citation: SecurityTrails Google Hacking)(Citation: ExploitDB GoogleHacking)
Adversaries may craft various search engine queries depending on what information they seek to gather. Threat actors may use search engines to harvest general information about victims, as well as use specialized queries to look for spillages/leaks of sensitive information such as network details or credentials. Information from these sources may reveal opportunities for other forms of reconnaissance (ex: Phishing for Information or Search Open Technical Databases), establishing operational resources (ex: Establish Accounts or Compromise Accounts), and/or initial access (ex: Valid Accounts or Phishing).
How GTK Cyber trains on this
GTK Cyber's hands-on training programs cover detection engineering across the MITRE ATT&CK framework, including the Reconnaissance tactic this technique falls under. Our practitioner-led courses focus on building real detections, not just memorizing technique IDs.
Related techniques
- T1589 — Gather Victim Identity Information
- T1590 — Gather Victim Network Information
- T1591 — Gather Victim Org Information
- T1592 — Gather Victim Host Information
- T1593 — Search Open Websites/Domains
- T1594 — Search Victim-Owned Websites
- T1595 — Active Scanning
- T1596 — Search Open Technical Databases
- T1597 — Search Closed Sources
- T1598 — Phishing for Information
- T1681 — Search Threat Vendor Data
- T1682 — Query Public AI Services