Advanced password hacking using Google – easy to learn, easy to apply

Google is your best friend when it comes to hacking. The search engine giant has crawled loads of data which was intended to be protected by webmasters, but is being exploited and mined by smart users using Google dorks. Today I will be discussing some practical dorks which will help you gain passwords, databases and vulnerable directories. The basic methodology remains the same, query Google using specialized dorks with precise parameters and you are good to go. I assume you have basic working knowledge of google dorks.
Lets start, shall we ?

FTP passwords
ws_ftp.ini is a configuration file for a popular win32 FTP client that stores usernames, (weakly) encoded passwords, sites and directories that the user can store for later reference.

intitle:index.of ws_ftp.ini

You can also this dork which uses "parent directory" to avoid results other than directory listings

filetype:ini ws_ftp pwd
Or
"index of/" "ws_ftp.ini" "parent directory"

even if the site or file has been taken offlline, you can still search the contents in the Google cache using the following dork

"cache:www.abc.com/ws_ftp.ini"
where
www.abc.com is the site you want to check the dork for.

The ws_ftp password uses quite weak encryption algorithm, hence once you get the password, you can break it using the decryptor provided here or from here.


PHP Hacking
Sites made in PHP have a file known as “config.php” which stores configuration and the username and password for the sql database the site is hosting. This password is required only once per transaction (i.e when ever admin logins or a transaction is committed at administrator level) and hence will be specified by the ‘require_once’ parameter in the config file or in index file.

intitle:index.of config.php

to view php file contents

intitle:"Index of" phpinfo.php

you can also try the directory traversal attack in php using the following dork

inurl:download.php?=filename

if you are lucky, substitute the filename with ‘index.php’, download it, read it and get the password (hint:if you are not able to find it, try looking for globals.php).
Since most websites today deny this trick, but you may get lucky with some :) You might also want to have a look at Hacking PHP 4.4 websites in 20 seconds


SQL Dumps
We will be hunting for SQL password dumps saved in database, here ext:sql specifies the type of password dump, e10adc3949ba59abbe56e057f20f883e is the md5 hash for 123456; one of the most common password people keep..and intext dork will allows to search inside the dump.

ext:sql intext:@gmail.com intext:e10adc3949ba59abbe56e057f20f883e

ext:sql intext:"INSERT INTO" intext:@somemail.com intext:password

Remember kids

1. Use different email providers, substitute gmail/yahoomail instead of somemail ,or try custom domain mail providers.
2. Use different file extensions.
3. Use different type of hashes, some older ones might be using md4 and some others might be using other prominent encryption algorithms.
4. just mix everything up and try different combinations :)

Its not over..Yet
A very flexible query can be used to hunt for WS_FTP.log which in turn can disclose valuable information about the server.

+htpasswd +WS_FTP.LOG filetype:log

You can substitute "+htpasswd" for "+FILENAME" & you may get several results not mentioned before using the normal search. You can further explore filenames by using keywords like

phpinfo, admin, MySQL, password, htdocs, root, Cisco, Oracle, IIS, resume, inc, sql, users, mdb, frontpage, CMS, backend, https, editor, intranet

The list goes on and on.. Also you cam try this dork to data mine information about the uploader

"allinurl: "some.host.com" WS_FTP.LOG filetype:log"

which tells you more about who's uploading files to a specific site, quite handy for some passive reconnaissance.

Also..if you are one hell of a lazy b**tard ,you can do it using some software like Google Hacks..but remember, manual way is the way to go. I may have included some software specific password mining, but that would cripple your imagination. My recco ? go postal by using your imagination and developing your own dorks and queries.