theHarvester – Advanced Information Gathering Tool for Pentesters & Ethical Hackers

The objective of this Information Gathering Tool is to gather emails, subdomains, hosts, employee names, open ports, and banners from different public sources like search engines, PGP key servers, and the SHODAN computer database.

This tool is intended to help Penetration testers in the early stages of the penetration test in order to understand the customer footprint on the Internet.

What is Information Gathering Tool?

It is a software or system designed to collect and compile data from various sources for analysis and decision-making purposes.

These tools automate the process of gathering information, which can save time and effort compared to manual methods.

There are different types of information-gathering tools available, depending on the specific needs and goals of the user.

It is also useful for anyone that wants to know what an attacker can see about their organization.

This tool is designed to help the penetration tester in an earlier stage; it is effective, simple, and easy to use. The sources supported are:

1. Google – emails, subdomains
2. Google profiles – Employee names
3. Bing search – emails, subdomains/hostnames, virtual hosts
4. Pgp servers – emails, subdomains/hostnames
5. LinkedIn – Employee names
6. Exalead – emails, subdomains/hostnames

New features:

1. Time delays between requests
2. XML results export.

Also Read: FIREWALK – Active Reconnaissance Network Security Tool

How it works – Information Gathering Tool

#theHarvester -d [url] -l 300 -b [search engine name]

#theHarvester -d gbhackers.com -l 300 -b google

-d [url] will be the remote site from which you wants to fetch the juicy information.


-l will limit the search for specified number.

-b is used to specify search engine name.

Tool Location:

theHarvester Options:

How to Find Email ID’s in Domain:

Example #1:

Example #2:

Download and Install the complete Package of theHarvester – from GitHub.

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Also, Read

InSpy – Linkedin Information Gathering Tool for Penetration Testers

Nmap – A Penetration Testing Tool To Perform Information Gathering (Guide)

Yuki Chan – Automated Penetration Testing and Auditing Tool