Information gathering or better called reconnaissance is the cornerstone of any Penetration Testing or Bug Bounty exercise. It is simply the act of collecting as much information as possible on a target so as to possibly find loophole. However, the traditional forms of recon that used to be feasible in the manual mode are not feasible in 2025. The complexity of manual work in pentesting is now supplemented by automation tools and frameworks, so pentesters and bug hunters also need to work more efficiently and scalably with applications.
I will provide you my own perspective for what I think are automation tools and frameworks much better than reconnaissance to accomplish the task. Let me explain, we as pentesters or `bounty hunters for us time is money So why not let the bots crawl, enumerate and find info and report back to us and let us do what we do best hacking and manually seek out web vulnerabilities.
Well, if you still do not believe the effectiveness of recon tools, then visit project discovery github page, or the github page of any recon tool creator like tomnomnom alone, and we can’t even name thirty recon tools, but two web pages together have at least sixty recon tools. Just think about the outrage and the discomfort to run each tool and the time they would take to analyze and provide the feedback. It is advisable to choose automation framework that contains a large number of open source tools for us and we are benefited by analysing the result generated from this automated frameworks.
Below are some of the most respected methodologies and resources in the bug hunting community to help you get started. Even if you did not read this blog to the end, but manage to somehow go through all the resources and make notes, then you are making great progress as these are resources from experienced bug bounty hunters. AND REMEMBER ALWAYS PREFER AUTOMATION FOR DOING BORING AND REPEATED TASKS SO THAT WE CAN FOCUS ON MUCH MORE IMPORTANT THINGS.
Must-Watch Videos and Guides
Some Good Recon Blogs on Hacklido
Why Automation is Key in 2025
If you’re still doing recon manually in 2025, you’re missing a lot.
Manual recon is time-consuming and prone to human error. Instead, let bots, scripts, and frameworks like ReconFTW, and rengine, and handle the repetitive work. Your time is better spent on manual testing and exploitation, where human creativity shines. Refer these two resources to try and figure out which automated tools and frameworks works best for you. For me reconftw and rengine stands out and in your case you might prefer axiom and osmedeus.
- https://github.com/attacksurge/awesome-attack-surface-monitoring/
Still here to learn about some manual recon techniques, well I got you covered. But mind you are are far better off with experimenting and playing with attack surface management tools and recon automation
1. Initial Domain Enumeration
Of all the required components in any reconnaissance phase the first one involves acquiring primary details concerning the target. This is the details of where the domain was registered, IP address used and any other identifiable infrastructure that could benefit later.
WHOIS Lookup
Essentially, WHOIS lookup is the first choice tool for any pentester. It offers important information of the domain owner such as the registrar and the date when the domain was registered and more information. However, **it is necessary to note that employing some organizations utilize privacy protection services that hide this data. Therefore, it is equally useful though not enough to rely strictly on WHOIS when dealing with website and domain data.
Common WHOIS Command:
whois example.com
This command will return basic information about the domain registration, such as:
- Registrar Information
- Domain Expiration
- Registrant Contact
- Name Servers
If you discover that WHOIS information is either disguised or unhelpful, it is now the appropriate DNS enumeration and subdomain discovery time.
2: Subdomain Enumeration
What is Subdomain Enumeration?
Subdomains are smaller divisions within a main domain. For example:
Subdomains often lead to forgotten, vulnerable assets that can be exploited. Some organizations may secure their primary domain but leave subdomains wide open.
Essential Tools for Subdomain Enumeration
3 DNS Enumeration & Subdomain Discovery
To what concerns Jason Haddix writes, DNS and subdomain enumeration are the components of the external recon phase. Using DNS queries and other tools you can find out hidden services or subdomains related to the target.
DNS Zone Transfers
One of the best techniques that can be used to get some understanding of a domain’s network infrastructure is performing a DNS zone transfer. In this way, one will get a full list of all DNS records of the target domain. However, most organizations have secured this by blocking zone transfer requests, so it’s typically only useful against poorly configured DNS servers.
Commands to Attempt DNS Zone Transfer:
dig @<DNS_SERVER> example.com axfr
If successful, this will return a list of DNS records, which can include:
- Subdomains
- MX records (Mail servers)
- A records (IP addresses)
Additional Subdomain Discovery with DNSdumpster:
DNSdumpster is a web-based tool which provides Free subdomain enumeration. You can visit [dnsdumpster.com](https:There is a similar site for doing the same thing with domain names; try it by entering your target domain on dnsdumpster.com.
DNS Record Enumeration: Using dnsrecon
DNS enumeration can be described as the process of gathering DNS information of a given domain and limited to extracting DNS records using a tool called dnsrecon. It can help reveal new subdomains and services related to the target domain and that most likely would not have been found during a standard crawl.
Command to Use dnsrecon:
dnsrecon -d example.com -t std
This command will perform a simple DNS scan to find A, MX, TXT records and much more
4. Virtual Hosts (VHosts)
VHosts provides ways of hosting multiple domains in server using a single IP address. Finding new VHosts can mean the discovery of previously unknown applications or admin panels.
Tools to Brute-Force VHosts:
5. Directory Busting (What It Is and Why It’s Important)
Directory probing is act of **performing trial and error on web directories to find for hidden pages and files not listed in search engines.
Tools for Directory Busting:
Dirsearch:
python3 dirsearch.py -u https://target.com -e php,html,js
Feroxbuster:
feroxbuster -u https://target.com -w /path/to/wordlist
FFUF:
ffuf -u https://target.com/FUZZ -w wordlist.txt -o ffuf_results.json
6. Google Dorking
Google Dorking (or “Google hacking”) is basically the systematic scouring done through the Google search page of information that is available to the public, but could otherwise be considered confidential. The attackers use general and specific techniques of forming queries that help them find files that are inaccessible from the usual browsing or yield error messages, log in pages and directories..
Common Google Dorks:
Find Login Pages:
site:example.com inurl:"/login"
Find Exposed Directories:
site:example.com intitle:"index of" "parent directory"
Find Exposed PDF Files:
site:example.com filetype:pdf
Find Configuration Files:
site:example.com "database.cfg"
Despite being effective, there are drawbacks of dorking and thus, should not be used independently. It will not locate those resources that have been deindexed with the search engines, but if applied properly it will offer a lot of details.
7. Hunting for leaked database
Finally, other threats have to be gathered from other sources like social networks, open code repositories e.g. GitHub, and the history of breaches that occurred in the past. HaveIbeenPWNED.com, PASTEBIN and ARCHIVE.ORG are good sites to try to seek exposed account credentials, configuration files, passwords, or any other sensitive data.
Have I Been Pwned: https://haveibeenpwned.com
Wayback Machine: https://archive.org/web/
Conclusion: Automate First, Hunt Later
If you’re still doing recon by hand in 2025, well, you’re already behind the eight ball. Recon tasks can be easily divided between ReconFTW, Subfinder, Dirsearch and other related tools. Automation enables you to sweep a wide attack surface in short order to let you get to manual testing where you rely on hacker intuition.
Automate anything and let the tools do all the legwork. Frankly speaking, your time as pentester or bug bounty hunter is more effectively spent on analyzing and exploiting what the bots found out!
Always remember to:
- Cross-verify your findings: Some tasks often involve inconsistencies, therefore, recommend that people always seek other sources of WHOIS or reverse DNS lookups.
- Focus on high-value techniques: Very often, while identifying subdomains and performing DNS queries, analysts stumble upon critical infrastructure that is vulnerable to attack.
- Be patient: Evaluations on reconnaissance are ongoing in nature. Get in the habit of collecting more and more data and remain as persistent as possible.
