What is Google Dorking?
I recently connected with Nguyen Nguyen, founder and CEO of CyberArmor. I was impressed with his thought leadership in the field of cybersecurity and invited him to speak at our company and share some of his knowledge and expertise.
During his presentation, he brought something called Google Dork. I had never previously heard of it, so I figured I'd summarize it here.
What is Google Dorking?
Google Dorking (aka Google Hacking) is the practice of using advanced search operators to filter search results. These results are intended to reveal hidden, confidential, or accidentally indexed data not readily available through regular Google searches.
Dorks are essentially searches, but allows you to “hack” Google to retrieve search results that are restricted or hidden from normal users through the use of certain operators.
What if there is hidden text in an HTML page? Or a publicly accessible S3 bucket? Or direct links to archived PDF content?
How Does Google Dorking Work?
Some of the search operators worth highlighting are site:, inurl:, and intitle: (there are more). Dorks (i.e., Google searches with these operators) can reveal:
- Sensitive documents
- Exposed login pages
- Unlisted directories
- Config files with passwords
- Databases
- Website vulnerabilities
- Hidden camera feeds
- Other private information
An Example of Google Dorking
Simply add the operator to your search criteria as shown.
