Performing Subdomain Enumeration with Subfinder

When to Use

• During the reconnaissance phase of penetration testing or bug bounty hunting
• When mapping the external attack surface of a target organization
• Before performing vulnerability scanning on discovered subdomains
• When building an asset inventory for continuous security monitoring
• During red team engagements requiring passive information gathering

Prerequisites

• Go 1.21+ installed for building from source
• Subfinder v2 installed (go install -v github.com/projectdiscovery/subfinder/v2/cmd/subfinder@latest)
• API keys configured for passive sources (Shodan, Censys, VirusTotal, SecurityTrails, Chaos)
• Provider configuration file at $HOME/.config/subfinder/provider-config.yaml
• Network access to passive DNS and certificate transparency sources
• httpx or httprobe for validating discovered subdomains

Workflow

Step 1 — Install and Configure Subfinder

# Install subfinder
go install -v github.com/projectdiscovery/subfinder/v2/cmd/subfinder@latest

# Verify installation
subfinder -version

# Configure API keys for enhanced results
mkdir -p $HOME/.config/subfinder
cat > $HOME/.config/subfinder/provider-config.yaml << 'EOF'
shodan:
  - YOUR_SHODAN_API_KEY
censys:
  - YOUR_CENSYS_API_ID:YOUR_CENSYS_API_SECRET
virustotal:
  - YOUR_VT_API_KEY
securitytrails:
  - YOUR_ST_API_KEY
chaos:
  - YOUR_CHAOS_API_KEY
EOF

Step 2 — Run Basic Subdomain Enumeration

# Single domain enumeration
subfinder -d example.com -o subdomains.txt

# Multiple domains from a file
subfinder -dL domains.txt -o all_subdomains.txt

# Use all passive sources (slower but more thorough)
subfinder -d example.com -all -o subdomains_all.txt

# Silent mode for piping to other tools
subfinder -d example.com -silent | httpx -silent -status-code

Step 3 — Filter and Customize Source Selection

# Use specific sources only
subfinder -d example.com -s crtsh,virustotal,shodan -o filtered.txt

# Exclude specific sources
subfinder -d example.com -es github -o results.txt

# Enable recursive subdomain enumeration
subfinder -d example.com -recursive -o recursive_subs.txt

# Match specific patterns
subfinder -d example.com -m "api,dev,staging" -o matched.txt

Step 4 — Control Rate Limiting and Output Format

# Rate limit to avoid API throttling
subfinder -d example.com -rate-limit 10 -t 5 -o rate_limited.txt

# JSON output for programmatic processing
subfinder -d example.com -oJ -o subdomains.json

# Output with source information
subfinder -d example.com -cs -o subdomains_with_sources.txt

# Collect results in a directory per domain
subfinder -dL domains.txt -oD ./results/

Step 5 — Validate Discovered Subdomains with httpx

# Pipe subfinder output to httpx for live validation
subfinder -d example.com -silent | httpx -silent -status-code -title -tech-detect -o live_hosts.txt

# Check for specific ports
subfinder -d example.com -silent | httpx -ports 80,443,8080,8443 -o web_services.txt

# Resolve IP addresses
subfinder -d example.com -silent | dnsx -a -resp -o resolved.txt

Step 6 — Integrate with Broader Recon Pipeline

# Chain with nuclei for vulnerability scanning
subfinder -d example.com -silent | httpx -silent | nuclei -t cves/ -o vulns.txt

# Combine with amass for comprehensive enumeration
subfinder -d example.com -o subfinder_results.txt
amass enum -passive -d example.com -o amass_results.txt
cat subfinder_results.txt amass_results.txt | sort -u > combined_subdomains.txt

# Screenshot discovered hosts
subfinder -d example.com -silent | httpx -silent | gowitness file -f - -P screenshots/

Key Concepts

Concept	Description
Passive Enumeration	Discovering subdomains without directly querying target DNS servers
Certificate Transparency	Public logs of SSL/TLS certificates revealing subdomain names
DNS Aggregation	Collecting subdomain data from multiple passive DNS databases
Recursive Enumeration	Discovering subdomains of subdomains for deeper coverage
Source Providers	External APIs and databases queried for subdomain intelligence
CNAME Records	Canonical name records that may reveal additional infrastructure
Wildcard DNS	DNS configuration returning results for any subdomain query

Tools & Systems

Tool	Purpose
Subfinder	Primary passive subdomain enumeration engine
httpx	HTTP probe tool for validating live subdomains
dnsx	DNS resolution and validation toolkit
Nuclei	Template-based vulnerability scanner for discovered hosts
Amass	Complementary subdomain enumeration with active/passive modes
gowitness	Web screenshot utility for visual reconnaissance
Shodan	Internet-wide scanning database for subdomain intelligence
crt.sh	Certificate transparency log search engine

Common Scenarios

1. Bug Bounty Reconnaissance — Enumerate all subdomains of a target program scope to identify forgotten or misconfigured assets that may contain vulnerabilities
2. Attack Surface Mapping — Build a comprehensive inventory of externally accessible subdomains for ongoing security monitoring and risk assessment
3. Cloud Asset Discovery — Identify subdomains pointing to cloud services (AWS, Azure, GCP) that may be vulnerable to subdomain takeover
4. CI/CD Integration — Automate subdomain monitoring in pipelines to detect new subdomains and alert on changes to the attack surface
5. Merger & Acquisition Due Diligence — Map the complete external footprint of an acquisition target during security assessment

Output Format

## Subdomain Enumeration Report
- **Target Domain**: example.com
- **Total Subdomains Found**: 247
- **Live Hosts**: 183
- **Unique IP Addresses**: 42
- **Sources Used**: crt.sh, VirusTotal, Shodan, SecurityTrails, Censys

### Discovered Subdomains
| Subdomain | IP Address | Status Code | Technology |
|-----------|-----------|-------------|------------|
| api.example.com | 10.0.1.5 | 200 | Nginx, Node.js |
| staging.example.com | 10.0.2.10 | 403 | Apache |
| dev.example.com | 10.0.3.15 | 200 | Express |

### Recommendations
- Remove DNS records for decommissioned subdomains
- Investigate subdomains with CNAME pointing to unclaimed services
- Restrict access to development and staging environments