Using scripts to automatically gather OSINT data

In the field of information security research, the time that we can save is critical when performing information gathering, which can yield vulnerability research and exploitation results. In this section, we will focus on how to automate some of the OSINT to make passive reconnaissance more effective:

#!/bin/bash 
echo "Enter target domain: " 
read domain 
if [[ $domain != "" ]]; then 
   echo "Target domain set to $domain" 
   echo "********************************************" 
   echo "The Harvestor" 
         theharvester -d $domain -l 500 -b all -f harvester_$domain 
   echo "done!" 
   echo "********************************************" 
   echo "Whois Details" 
         whois $domain >>  whois_$domain 
   echo "done!" 
   echo "********************************************" 
   echo "Searching for txt files on $domain using Goofile..." 
         goofile -d $domain -f txt >> goofile_txt_$domain 
   echo "done!" 
   echo "********************************************" 
   echo "Searching for pdf files on $domain using Goofile..." 
         goofile -d $domain -f pdf >> goofile_pdf_$domain 
   echo "done!" 
        echo "********************************************" 
        echo "Searching for pdf files on $domain using Goofile..." 
                goofile -d $domain -f doc >> goofile_doc_$domain 
        echo "done!" 
        echo "********************************************" 
        echo "Searching for pdf files on $domain using Goofile..." 
                goofile -d $domain -f xls >> goofile_xls_$domain 
        echo "done!" 
else 
   echo "Error! Please enter a domain... " 
fi 

The preceding automation is a very simple script that makes use of some of the command-line tools in Kali and stores the output in multiple files without a database. However, attackers can make use of similar scripts to automate the majority of command-line tools to harvest information.