Recon - Hostnames discovery
DNS
If a DNS service is accessible on the targeted server, multiple techniques can be used to retrieve hostnames that could be linked to a web application: DNS brute forcing, DNS zone transfer, etc. If an hostname for an Internet facing web application is known, subdomain names may be found in public resources and proprietary databases.
For more information on these technique, refer to the [L7] DNS - Methodology note.
SSL/TLS certificate
If an HTTPS service is exposed, the SSL / TLS certificate presented by the service may disclose one or multiple hostnames in the Subject and Subject Alternative Name fields. The ports and services scanning tool nmap will automatically extract these information. A review can also be done manually using a web browser in order to retrieve the SSL / TLS certificate.
Virtual Hosts brute force
The term Virtual Host, or VHOST, refers to the practice of running more than one web application on a single server. Virtual hosts can be "IP-based" or "name-based".
When a webserver receive an HTTP request, routed to it using the IP address of the TCP packet, it uses the hostname specified in the HTTP Host header to determine the named virtual host queried.
Whenever using named virtual hosts over SSL / TLS, in an HTTPS configuration, the HTTP request, headers included, can't be read until the SSL / TLS session is established. In order to provide a practical solution, and present the SSL / TLS certificate associated to the requested hostname, an extension to the SSL / TLS protocol called Server Name Indication (SNI) was defined. The SNI allows the client to include the requested hostname in the first message of the SSL / TLS handshake during the session setup.
The virtual-host-discovery Ruby script and the VHostScan Python script can be used to brute force VHOSTS (over HTTP or through an SSL / TLS session).
Note that whenever specifying a wordlist, both tools will replace %s by the specified hostname. So a wordlist used for DNS brute forcing should be adapted using:
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