theHarvester

About

theHarvester is a simple to use, yet powerful tool designed to be used during the reconnaissance stage of a red team assessment or penetration test. It performs open source intelligence (OSINT) gathering to help determine a domain's external threat landscape. The tool gathers names, emails, IPs, subdomains, and URLs by using multiple public resources that include:

Package versions

Install and dependencies

• Python 3.12 or higher.
• https://github.com/laramies/theHarvester/wiki/Installation

Install uv:

curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh

Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/laramies/theHarvester
cd theHarvester

Install dependencies and create a virtual environment:

uv sync

Run theHarvester:

uv run theHarvester

Development

To install development dependencies:

uv sync --all-groups

To run tests:

uv run pytest

To run linting and formatting:

uv run ruff check

uv run ruff format

To protect the optional /additional/* REST API routes, set THEHARVESTER_API_KEY and pass the same value in the X-API-Key header. Those routes return 503 when the key is not configured.

Passive modules

• baidu: Baidu search engine (https://www.baidu.com)

• bevigil: CloudSEK BeVigil scans mobile application for OSINT assets (https://bevigil.com/osint-api)

• brave: Brave search engine - now uses official Brave Search API (https://api-dashboard.search.brave.com)

• bufferoverun: Fast domain name lookups for TLS certificates in IPv4 space (https://tls.bufferover.run)

• builtwith: Find out what websites are built with (https://builtwith.com)

• censys: Uses certificates searches to enumerate subdomains and gather emails (https://censys.io)

• certspotter: Cert Spotter monitors Certificate Transparency logs (https://sslmate.com/certspotter)

• criminalip: Specialized Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI) search engine (https://www.criminalip.io)

• crtsh: Comodo Certificate search (https://crt.sh)

• dehashed: Take your data security to the next level is (https://dehashed.com)

• dnsdumpster: Domain research tool that can discover hosts related to a domain (https://dnsdumpster.com)

• duckduckgo: DuckDuckGo search engine (https://duckduckgo.com)

• dymo: Dymo API data verifier - confirms domains, surfaces typo suggestions and MX/fraud signals (https://dymo.tpeoficial.com)

• fofa: FOFA search eingine (https://en.fofa.info)

• fullhunt: Next-generation attack surface security platform (https://fullhunt.io)

• github-code: GitHub code search engine (https://www.github.com)

• hackertarget: Online vulnerability scanners and network intelligence to help organizations (https://hackertarget.com)

• haveibeenpwned: Check if your email address is in a data breach (https://haveibeenpwned.com)

• hunter: Hunter search engine (https://hunter.io)

• hunterhow: Internet search engines for security researchers (https://hunter.how)

• intelx: Intelx search engine (https://intelx.io)

• leakix: LeakIX search engine (https://leakix.net)

• leaklookup: Data breach search engine (https://leak-lookup.com)

• mojeek: Mojeek search engine (https://www.mojeek.com)

• netlas: A Shodan or Censys competitor (https://app.netlas.io)

• onyphe: Cyber defense search engine (https://www.onyphe.io)

• otx: AlienVault open threat exchange (https://otx.alienvault.com)

• pentesttools: Cloud-based toolkit for offensive security testing, focused on web applications and network penetration testing (https://pentest-tools.com)

• projecdiscovery: Actively collects and maintains internet-wide assets data, to enhance research and analyse changes around DNS for better insights (https://chaos.projectdiscovery.io)

• rapiddns: DNS query tool which make querying subdomains or sites of a same IP easy (https://rapiddns.io)

• rocketreach: Access real-time verified personal/professional emails, phone numbers, and social media links (https://rocketreach.co)

• securityscorecard: helps TPRM and SOC teams detect, prioritize, and remediate vendor risk across their entire supplier ecosystem at scale (https://securityscorecard.com)

• securityTrails: Security Trails search engine, the world's largest repository of historical DNS data (https://securitytrails.com)

• sherlockeye: Reverse Lookup & AI-Powered OSINT (https://sherlockeye.io)

• -s, --shodan: Shodan search engine will search for ports and banners from discovered hosts (https://shodan.io)

• subdomaincenter: A subdomain finder tool used to find subdomains of a given domain (https://www.subdomain.center)

• subdomainfinderc99: A subdomain finder is a tool used to find the subdomains of a given domain (https://subdomainfinder.c99.nl)

• thc: Free subdomain enumeration service with no API key required (https://ip.thc.org)

• threatminer: Data mining for threat intelligence (https://www.threatminer.org)

• tomba: Tomba search engine (https://tomba.io)

• urlscan: A sandbox for the web that is a URL and website scanner (https://urlscan.io)

• venacus: Venacus search engine (https://venacus.com)

• virustotal: Domain search (https://www.virustotal.com)

• whoisxml: Subdomain search (https://subdomains.whoisxmlapi.com/api/pricing)

• yahoo: Yahoo search engine (https://www.yahoo.com)

• windvane: Windvane search engine (https://windvane.lichoin.com)

• zoomeye: China's version of Shodan (https://www.zoomeye.org)

Active modules

• DNS brute force: dictionary brute force enumeration
• Screenshots: Take screenshots of subdomains that were found

Modules that require an API key

Documentation to setup API keys can be found at - https://github.com/laramies/theHarvester/wiki/Installation#api-keys