Shodan Command Line a Step by Step Walkthrough

Bulls Eye included in hacking tools gathering

2020-03-24 2023 words 10 minutes

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Shodan Command line in this article and video, I show you what you can do, and the benefit of using the Shodan command line in your terminal. Searching for Vulnerabilities to port scanning, there is an incredible amount possible with Shodan.

What is Shodan

Shodan is a search engine that lets the user find specific types of computers (webcams, routers, servers, etc …) currently connected to the internet using a variety of filters. Some have also described it as a search engine of service banners, which are metadata that the device sends back to the client.

Shodan the scariest search engine on the internet

Shodan terrifies non-technical people who don’t understand how the internet works. CNN called Shodan the “Scariest search engine on the internet” in 2013. This is definitely of no sense since attackers intent on causing harm don’t need Shodan to find targets.

Shodan Eye is a tool I made.

Beware of the attacks on your own devices!

A quick search for the term “default password” reveals countless printers, servers and system control devices that use “admin” as their user name and “1234” as their password. In many cases, it doesn’t even have a password, and you leave it blank. Until today, many connected systems require no credentials at all!

Some nice articles to read are the “Hacking printers” and “Hacking Security webcams” In these articles, I show you how to use Shodan for that.

What is the difference between Google or another search engine?

The most fundamental difference is that Shodan Eye analyzes the Internet, while Google analyzes the World Wide Web. Moreover, the devices connected to the World Wide Web are only a small part of what is really connected to the Internet.

Hackers love the terminal

“You are a hacker. Your home is the terminal. You work on several projects at once, You know every keystroke is valuable. With just some commands, you can automate tasks, install your favorite software, view a whole network, find vulnerabilities on just about anything connected to the internet, compile a script, create additional user accounts, properly configure anonymity software, and optimize our interactions with terminals. When you search for something, it should be blazing fast. If something is less than 100% efficient, you will spend hours figuring out the right way to save yourself seconds.”

Install Shodan

Shodan is already installed with the most penetration and security Linux distros, such as Kali Linux, Parrot OS, and BlackArch.
To show you a Shodan installation I have set up a Minimal Ubuntu Server 18.04

Shodan command line interface (CLI)

The shodan command-line interface (CLI) is packaged with the official Python library for Shodan, which means if you’re running the latest version of the library you already have access to the CLI. Also, the Shodan command line is more powerful than the website is.

Since I chose a Minimal Ubuntu Server to show the installation, I also have to install all other packages (eg python and pip) that are needed before you can install Shodan on your computer. It is good to try different Linux distros, you will learn a lot from that. And it is just fun..!

Python is not installed by default on CentOS. This also applies to a lot of other Linux distributions. I show you in the video how to install all of this.

Insall python and pip

To make it very easy, I put all the packages you need for python 2 and python 3 in one line.

To learn the command line well, I recommend that you don’t just copy everything, but type everything over, it’s a good way to learn

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sudo apt install python python3 python-setuptools python3-setuptools python-pip python3-pip

After the Python and Pip install you have this result down below.

Shodan Install using Pip

Shodan is then easy to install using pip.

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sudo pip install shodan

On the website of Shodan, they indicate installing Shodan using easy_install. (In this article I choose the pip install), see above.

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sudo easy_install shodan

Shodan account

_You **don't** need to have a paid account **to use Shodan**._ You always can use the free version. But if you want to use Shodan very extensively, if it is for your security company, then I can recommend this. For myself, I have had a Shodan lifetime membership for years. This offers many advantages and much more is possible.

Shodan Membership In short: more access to the Shodan website and the API. On Black Friday “2019” shodan had an awesome deal “Shodan lifetime membership for $ 1 (instead of $ 49) I don’t know if you can still get a shodan account for that $ 50. Otherwise, waiting for another black Friday might be a good choice.

Get your shodan API key

Now that Shodan is installed you have to make a Shodan account. A Shodan API key can be found here. Once your account has been confirmed you will receive your own API Key.

Initialize your Shodan API Key

Once the tool is installed you have to initialize the environment with your API key using shodan init

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sudo shodan init Your API Key

The Shodan command line

shodan -h / –help

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shodan -h

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┌─[bullseye@parrot]─[~]
└──╼ $shodan -h
Usage: shodan [OPTIONS] COMMAND [ARGS]...

Options:
  -h, --help  Show this message and exit.

Commands:
  alert       Manage the network alerts for your account
  convert     Convert the given input data file into a...
  count       Returns the number of results for a search
  data        Bulk data access to Shodan
  domain      View all available information for a domain
  download    Download search results and save them in a...
  honeyscore  Check whether the IP is a honeypot or not.
  host        View all available information for an IP...
  info        Shows general information about your account
  init        Initialize the Shodan command-line
  myip        Print your external IP address
  org         Manage your organization's access to Shodan
  parse       Extract information out of compressed JSON...
  radar       Real-Time Map of some results as Shodan finds...
  scan        Scan an IP/ netblock using Shodan.
  search      Search the Shodan database
  stats       Provide summary information about a search...
  stream      Stream data in real-time.

myip

Print your external IP address

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shodan myip

Shodan alert

Here is a list of all the commands to use for the Shodan alert. Keep track of the devices that you have exposed to the Internet. Setup notifications, launch scans and gain complete visibility into what you have connected. Here you can give it a try (It’s free)

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shodan alert

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┌─[bullseye@parrot]─[~]
└──╼ $shodan alert
Usage: shodan alert [OPTIONS] COMMAND [ARGS]...

  Manage the network alerts for your account

Commands:
  clear     Remove all alerts
  create    Create a network alert to monitor an external...
  disable   Disable a trigger for the alert
  enable    Enable a trigger for the alert
  info      Show information about a specific alert
  list      List all the active alerts
  remove    Remove the specified alert
  triggers  List the available notification triggers

Shodan count

Shodan count returns the number of results for a search

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shodan count port:22

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shodan count port:22 country:US

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shodan count apache

Using Shodan stats

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shodan stats --facets port net:198.20/16

Domain Shodan

View all available information for a domain.

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shodan domain website.com

Shodan search

In the following lists you can see what keywords you can use for the Shodan Search

General

all, asn, city, country, cpe, device, geo, has_ipv6, has_screenshot, has_ssl, has_vuln, hash hostname, ip, isp, link, net, org, os, port, postal, product, region, scan, shodan.module, state, version

Screenshots

screenshot.label

HTTP

http.component, http.component_category, http.favicon.hash, http.html, http.html_hash, http.robots_hash, http.securitytxt, http.status, http.title, http.waf

Bitcoin

bitcoin.ip, bitcoin.ip_count, bitcoin.port, bitcoin.version

SNMP

snmp.contact, snmp.location, snmp.name

SSL

ssl, ssl.alpn, ssl.cert.alg, ssl.cert.expired, ssl.cert.extension, ssl.cert.fingerprint, ssl.cert.issuer.cn, ssl.cert.pubkey.bits, ssl.cert.pubkey.type, ssl.cert.serial, ssl.cert.subject.cn, ssl.chain_count, ssl.cipher.bits, ssl.cipher.name, ssl.cipher.version, ssl.version

NTP

ntp.ip, ntp.ip_count, ntp.more, ntp.port

Telnet

telnet.do, telnet.dont, telnet.option, telnet.will, telnet.wont

SSH

ssh.hassh, ssh.type

Restricted

The following filters are only available to users of higher API plans.
tag, vuln

Filters Cheat Sheet Shodan

Shodan currently crawls nearly 1,500 ports across the Internet. Here are a few of the most commonly-used search filters to get started.

Filter Name

Description

Example

city

Name of the city

Devices in San Diego

country

2-letter Country code

Open ports in the United States

http.title

Title of the website

“Hacked” Websites

net

Network range or IP in CIDR notation

Services in the range of 8.8.0.0 to 8.8.255.255

org

Name of the organization that owns the IP space

Devices at Google

port

Port number for the service that is running

SSH servers

product

Name of the software that is powering the service

Samsung Smart TVs

screenshot.label

Label that describes the content of the image

Screenshots of Industrial Control Systems

state

U.S. State

Devices in Texas

Examples of a Shodan Search

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shodan search port:9100 pjl

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shodan search --fields ip_str,port,org,hostnames microsoft iis 6.0

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shodan search hacked by

shodan search hacked by

shodan host ip

View all available information for an IP. This also means that you often will find vulnerabilities, such as one of the photos you can see below. In the video, I will elaborate on this in more detail.

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shodan host ipadress

Finding vulnerabilities with Shodan

With this host, I don’t have to explain very much. Because this all seems very clear. Prevention in this is everything. “Don’t get hacked”

A way to prevent this kind of thing happens
Do some upgrades! It’s that simple.

Honeyscore

To see if an IP address is perhaps a honeypot, you can find out with this simple Shodan command line

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shodan honeyscore IP Address

Video Shodan Command line

In this video I show you what options the Shodan Command line has and how you can use them. I’ll have setup a Ubunty 18.04 minimal server for this video to show you how to setup Shodan. I have choosen the Minimal Ubuntu server because i have to install python and pip on it as well. And this is just a CLI.

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Conclusion “Shodan Command line”

I can speak from my own experience and I advise everyone to take a Shodan account. A free Shodan account is enough for many. You can do so much with Shodan. In this article, I only talked about Shodan Command-Line. Not about the website where you can do and lookup an incredible amount of things.

Also, this is not my first article and video that I make more or less about Shodan. (In many videos you see Shodan come back) Some time ago I made Shodan Eye. A tool with which you can find all devices that are connected to the internet. Here you can find more about Shodan Eye and also in this article The first version of Shodan Eye.

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IMPORTANT THINGS TO REMEMBER

✓ This Video and Article is made for educational purposes and pentest only.

✓ You will not misuse the information to gain unauthorized access.

✓ This information shall only be used to expand knowledge and not for causing malicious or damaging attacks…!

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