Adversaries may use search engines to collect information about victims that can be used during targeting. Search engine services typical crawl online sites to index context and may provide users with specialized syntax to search for specific keywords or specific types of content (i.e. filetypes).(Citation: SecurityTrails Google Hacking)(Citation: ExploitDB GoogleHacking)

Adversaries may craft various search engine queries depending on what information they seek to gather. Threat actors may use search engines to harvest general information about victims, as well as use specialized queries to look for spillages/leaks of sensitive information such as network details or credentials. Information from these sources may reveal opportunities for other forms of reconnaissance (ex: [Phishing for Information](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1598) or [Search Open Technical Databases](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1596)), establishing operational resources (ex: [Establish Accounts](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1585) or [Compromise Accounts](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1586)), and/or initial access (ex: [Valid Accounts](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1078) or [Phishing](https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1566)).
Search Engines
source_name: mitre-attack  url: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1593/002  external_id: T1593.002     source_name: SecurityTrails Google Hacking  description: Borges, E. (2019, March 5). Exploring Google Hacking Techniques. Retrieved October 20, 2020.  url: https://securitytrails.com/blog/google-hacking-techniques     source_name: ExploitDB GoogleHacking  description: Offensive Security. (n.d.). Google Hacking Database. Retrieved October 23, 2020.  url: https://www.exploit-db.com/google-hacking-database     