Week 19 - Customizing Nikto Scans
Last updated
Last updated
Happy week 19 of the #WebHackingSeries. Have you ever used Nikto to scan a website and received this dreaded error?
ERROR: Error limit (20) reached for host, giving up.
I used to see this all the time when I did bug bounties. What I found is that you can edit the Nikto Configuration file to increase the error limit! The config file is located at:
/var/lib/nikto/nikto.conf.default
At the very bottom of the file, you will find the ‘FAILURES’ variable you can set to any number. Then all you need to do is force Nikto to use your new config file with the ‘—config’ flag. Since the average ‘Script Kiddie’ doesn’t edit config files, this tip can make you a lot of money on bug bounty sites that allow scanning. In the past, I made $750 by discovering one sensitive file with a custom-configured Nikto scan.
It is also worth noting that you can set cookies in the configuration file as well, which allow you to perform Nikto scans on sites that require authentication.