What is shodan and how does it work?

Shodan 

Shodan could be a computer programme that lets the user realize specific varieties of computers (web cams, routers, servers, etc.) connected to the net employing a form of filters. ... it absolutely was launched in 2009 by coder John Matherly, who, in 2003, planned the concept of looking out devices coupled to the net.
SHODAN will what Google will however spits out specific and bigger amounts of knowledge. Whereas Google is fascinated by pretty pictures and glorious journal content (like what you're reading currently on the globe celebrated epigrammatic Courses Security blog!) SHODAN can tell the hacker (be they white or black hat) things like banner info, HTTP, SSH, FTP, and SNMP services. the foremost basic SHODAN search can render results by country, network, operational system(s), and port(s).

If you wished to execute a a lot of specific search you’d use a string like this:
port:121 country:US hyper-v
Port:121 – this narrows the search all the way down to specific ports.
Country – obvious.
Hyper V – this identifies all net servers victimisation Hyper V within the United Kingdom (for example) by their SNMP banner.
We here at epigrammatic Courses love SHODAN for one primary reason: we predict it's nice that there ar tools, like SHODAN, that expose weaknesses. Why? as a result of they expose holes and vulnerabilities which will then be patched. we have a tendency to solely learn through mistakes and there's nothing wrong from learning from others mistakes. These ‘mistakes’ embrace things like victimisation default passwords and not mend noted ageing vulnerabilities.
 we've got hosted several Hacker mavin events relating to security ‘hacking’ tools, programs and package – and therefore the one that we have a tendency to feel most kind of like SHODAN is PunkSPIDER, therefore go check it out if your interested. each SHODAN and PunkSPIDER will scan huge amounts of knowledge to specifically check, discover and audit vulnerabilities in net applications and websites.

SHODAN being employed to observe vulnerabilities in SCADA and ICS systems is especially helpful, or maybe higher aforementioned, is incredibly economical at finding vulnerabilities. A CNN article by David syndicalist recently highlighted 2 samples of however hackers used SHODAN. the primary example was however a personal was able to crack into a hockey rinks’ system (possibly SCADA/ HDI) to dethaw the rink! Another was able to own a the controls for a electricity plant in France! These aren't exaggerations. simply {this we have a tendency toek|in the week|on} we had a demo with SCADA security consultants showing however ‘easily’ a hacker will plant malware on a SCADA system victimisation metasploit and a USB stick.
Searching for ‘default password’ on SHODAN can end in virtually legion results – largely from servers however conjointly on printers. Printers ar particularly vulnerable that enables for security breaches to occur.