Basic reconnaissance automation tool for HackTheBox machines.
Information gathering (reconnaissance) is a crucial, yet an exhausting process due to its repetitiveness. While participating in HackTheBox seasonal events, I created a tool in Python that automates new CTF initialization / basic reconnaissance process. The source code is modification-friendly; if required, you can easily adjust the current scan options, integrate new tools or custom-built vulnerability scanners to expand functionality according to your needs.
The tool has two run modes supplied by the user as arguments: new and delete and is required to run with SUDO in order to make changes in /etc/hosts file as well as to simplify possible integration of certain tools that require SUDO privileges.
new run mode:
sudo python3 CTFRecon.py new -ip 10.129.107.139 -n test- Requests target IP (
-ip) and CTF name (-n) as arguments. - Creates a /home/username/CTFs/name directory, requests a unique directory name until it's given.
- Adds a new "IP-hostname.htb" entry to /etc/hosts file for hostname resolution (since DNS server is not available).
- Checks if a webserver is present on the target (on common HTTP ports 80 and 8080). If yes, runs 3 types of scanning as parallel processes with the following tools (If a webserver is not present, only runs nmap scan):
- Port scanning: nmap
- Directory and file enumeration: dirsearch
- Subdomain enumeration: ffuf
- Awaits until all processes complete, saves enumeration results as separate files in the created directory.
NOTE: ffuf is running with
-orargument, so the output file will only be created if results are present. - Notifies the user of successful completion.
delete run mode:
sudo python3 CTFRecon.py delete -n test- Checks if a CTF directory exists, and in such case deletes it along with its contents as well as a corresponding entry from /etc/hosts file.