How to Phish Social Media Sites with SocialFish (2024)

Phishing is the easiest way to get your password stolen, as it only takes one mistake to log in to the wrong website. A convincing phishing site is key to a successful attempt, and tools to create them have become intuitive and more sophisticated. SocialFish allows a hacker to create a persuasive phishing page for nearly any website, offering a web interface with an Android app for remote control.

In previous guides on phishing, one of the most common questions has been about how easy it would be to adapt the default page to look like a particular login. SocialFish can clone a social media website to create a password-harvesting attack link in only a few clicks, eliminating the need to create such a template yourself. While there is also a previous version of SocialFish that featured Ngrok integration, we'll be taking a look at the new version.

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The Next Generation of SocialFish

While the previous versions of SocialFish were impressive, the latest update includes a clean web interface to create and manage phishing links. The shift to web-based interfaces for tools like Kismet has helped to make SocialFish more accessible to beginners, and the refined simplicity makes cloning nearly any website incredibly simple.

One downside to the new SocialFish is that the documentation is sparse or nonexistent for many features. That means that many of the features like the attached Android application are not simple to use, and troubleshooting can be difficult as the Wiki contains a minimal amount of information.

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Still, as a bleeding-edge tool with a straightforward interface and well-thought-out controls, SocialFish is an easy way to demonstrate how simple customized phishing links are to make. One important note for this article is that, due to the potential for misuse and sketchy documentation, we'll only be deploying this link on our internal network, not to a target on the external internet.

What You'll Need

To use SocialFish, you'll need to have Python3 or higher installed on your computer. You'll also need PIP3, Python3's package manager, installed as well. In addition, several libraries are required for this tool to run. We'll cover installing them in the next steps, but keep in mind this can take quite some time to download and set up over a slow network.

Step 1: Download SocialFish

To start using SocialFish, we can check out the GitHub repository for information on previous versions and the mobile app that goes with the primary tool. Getting it running requires quite a few dependencies to be installed, so on a good internet connection, we can install everything with a few lines in a terminal window.

In a new terminal window, type the following commands to install the necessary dependencies, clone the repository, and run the set-up script.

~$ sudo apt-get install python3 python3-pip python3-dev -y~$ git clone https://github.com/UndeadSec/SocialFish.git~$ cd SocialFish~$ python3 -m pip install -r requirements.txt

Once it is finished running, you should be ready to use SocialFish. We'll be using our browser to interact with it, so open a FireFox window before proceeding to the next step.

Step 2: Log in to the Web Interface

Now, let's create a web interface that will help manage our phishing links. To do this, open a terminal window and type the following to change into the SocialFish folder. Pick a username and password to log in to the web interface, and substitute that for the "youruser" and "yourpassword" fields.

~$ cd SocialFish~$ python3 SocialFish.py youruser yourpassword

Once it's finished setting up, we should be able to access the web interface by navigating to the URL 0.0.0.0:5000 in our browser. Enter the username and password you set up, and click "Login" to access the SocialFish portal.

How to Phish Social Media Sites with SocialFish (1)

Step 3: Select the Target to Clone

Inside the SocialFish portal, we can see some important information. At the top, we see the field for the website we want to clone, the website we want to redirect to, and the URL for our attack.

How to Phish Social Media Sites with SocialFish (2)

We can also see some information about links we've already created. In my case, I've already created eight attack links, which have attracted 15 clicks and four sets of captured credentials.

Step 4: Select the Redirect Link

For our attack, we'll need to decide what website we want to clone. In this case, we'll pick twitter.com/login. To make things simple, we'll redirect back to twitter.com afterward. If they are already logged in, it will just look like a normal login was successful.

Enter the URL you want to clone and the URL you want to redirect to into their respective fields on the top right of the page. Click the lightning bolt to activate the link.

How to Phish Social Media Sites with SocialFish (3)

Step 5: Deploy the Phishing Link

Now, in a separate browser window, navigate to the attack link — the link we would be serving to the victim during a real attack. You will be directed to a real-looking phishing site, and you can enter a username and password to test it.

How to Phish Social Media Sites with SocialFish (4)

During a live deployment, you would need to redirect the target to this URL. The current documentation is sketchy on this, and I'm also leaving it out as to reduce the risk of malicious use of this script. For now, we can access it on our internal network.

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Once we enter our test credentials, we should be redirected to the link we specified. Now that we've captured some credentials let's explore how SocialFish logs them.

Step 6: Analyze the Captured Credentials

Back on the main menu, we can see that the number of captured credentials has gone up. We can also see that listed under "Successful Attacks" are a number of logs we can access.

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Click "View" on the most recent log to see the credentials we intercepted. It should open a page that dumps the collected information in a format like below.

How to Phish Social Media Sites with SocialFish (6)

That was easy! With only a couple of clicks, we were able to create a website that looks virtually identical to the real Twitter.com. As soon as we entered our credentials, SocialFish captured them and saved them to an interactive log, allowing us to manage phishing campaigns easily.

SocialFish Makes Phishing Easy

Though SocialFish has gone through many iterations, it continues to be a powerful tool for creating convincing phishing pages for social media websites. We haven't gone into how to deploy SocialFish across a network in this article, but as you can see in our example, the hardest part of creating a convincing fake on the fly is actually easy to do. One limitation of SocialFish as a tool is its current lack of documentation, but in the future, I expect this to improve to make the companion mobile app more useful.

I hope you enjoyed this guide to phishing social media websites! If you have any questions about this tutorial on phishing social media, leave a comment below, and feel free to reach me on Twitter @KodyKinzie.

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Cover photo by Alisson Moretto/GitHub; Screenshots by Kody/Null Byte
How to Phish Social Media Sites with SocialFish (2024)

FAQs

What are the uses of SocialFish? ›

Features of SocialFish

User can use the phishing tool with ngrok – with the help of ngrok, users are able to expose their local environment to the internet hence a phishing link generated with socialfish and ngrok can be used to target any individual from around the world.

What is social phish tool? ›

Socialphish is a powerful open-source Phishing Tool. Socialphish is becoming very popular nowadays which is used to do phishing attacks on Target. Socialphish is more user-friendly Social Engineering Toolkit. Socialphish contains some templates generated by another tool called Socialphish.

What are the requirements for SocialFish? ›

To use SocialFish, you'll need to have Python3 or higher installed on your computer. You'll also need PIP3, Python3's package manager, installed as well. In addition, several libraries are required for this tool to run.

How hackers use your social media? ›

Your social media account can be hacked in a number of ways, such as through a phishing scam or by downloading a malicious app. Once a hacker has access to your account, they can do a lot of damage, like stealing your personal information, posting offensive content or contacting your friends and family.

What is King phisher used for? ›

This package contains is a tool for testing and promoting user awareness by simulating real world phishing attacks. It features an easy to use, yet very flexible architecture allowing full control over both emails and server content.

What is the most common used method for phishing? ›

Email phishing is the most common type of phishing, and it has been in use since the 1990s. Hackers send these emails to any email addresses they can obtain. The email usually informs you that there has been a compromise to your account and that you need to respond immediately by clicking on a provided link.

What can a hacker do with a Phish? ›

The goal of the attacker can vary, with common targets including financial institutions, email and cloud productivity providers, and streaming services. The stolen information or access may be used to steal money, install malware, or spear phish others within the target organization.

Which social media platform has the most hackers? ›

According to the data presented by the Atlas VPN team, based on the Identity Theft Resource Center survey, Instagram users suffered the most from account takeover in 2021. In total, 84% of social media account takeover victims reported that their Instagram accounts got hijacked by scammers.

What platform do hackers use? ›

C++ is one of the go-to C languages for hackers because it helps them gain low-level access to hardware and processes.

What do hackers target the most? ›

Hackers typically target four main industries.
  • Healthcare. Over 90% of hospitals have been the victims of cyberattacks (most notably, ransomware) within the past three years. ...
  • Government. ...
  • Non-Profit. ...
  • Finance and Insurance.
Sep 7, 2022

What do most hackers use to hack? ›

Some of the most famous hacking tools in the market are Nmap (Network Mapper), Nessus, Nikto, Kismet, NetStumbler, Acunetix, Netsparker, and Intruder, Nmap, Metasploit, Aircrack-Ng, etc.

Is phishing illegal? ›

Phishing fraud essentially is cybercrime and it attracts several penal provisions of the Information Technology Act, 2000 as amended in 2008 adding some new provisions to deal with the phishing activity.

What is Ghost Phisher tool? ›

Ghost Phisher is a wireless network audit and attack software that creates a fake access point of a network, which fools a victim to connect to it. It then assigns an IP address to the victim. The tool can be used to perform various attacks, such as credentials phish and session hijacking.

What are the three types of phishing? ›

Types of Phishing Attacks
  • Spear Phishing.
  • Whaling.
  • Smishing.
  • Vishing.

What is one strategy that a phisher will use to steal confidential information? ›

There are various phishing techniques used by attackers:

Spoofing the sender address in an email to appear as a reputable source and request sensitive information. Attempting to obtain company information over the phone by impersonating a known company vendor or IT department.

What is the difference between phishing and blagging? ›

Phishing is a technique of fraudulently obtaining private information, often using email or SMS. The key difference between phishing and blagging, is that blagging is targeted towards one individual, whilst phishing is broader and hopes to get someone to bite.

How phishers trick users in revealing their personal data? ›

Phishing works by sending messages that look like they are from a legitimate company or website. Phishing messages will usually contain a link that takes the user to a fake website that looks like the real thing. The user is then asked to enter personal information, such as their credit card number.

What techniques do hackers use to steal information? ›

8 Common Hacking Techniques That Every Business Owner Should Know About
  • Phishing. Phishing is the most common hacking technique. ...
  • Bait and Switch Attack. ...
  • Key Logger. ...
  • Denial of Service (DoS\DDoS) Attacks. ...
  • ClickJacking Attacks. ...
  • Fake W.A.P. ...
  • Cookie Theft. ...
  • Viruses and Trojans.

What is the slam method? ›

The SLAM acronym can be used as a reminder of what to look for to identify possible phishing emails. The SLAM acronym stands for sender, links, attachments, message. Sender: when hackers send phishing emails, they often mimic a trusted sender's email address to trick recipients into opening the email.

What is the number one target for phishing attacks? ›

Often phishers are targeting an enterprise and a selected group at an office (staff, management, executives) that is responsible for a project or service.

Can phishing be done by text? ›

Text message or SMS phishing—also called “smishing”—occurs when scam artists use deceptive text messages to lure consumers into providing their personal or financial information.

How much does being a hacker pay? ›

As of Jan 17, 2023, the average monthly pay for a Hacker in the United States is $7,106 a month. While ZipRecruiter is seeing monthly salaries as high as $13,875 and as low as $1,500, the majority of Hacker salaries currently range between $4,166 (25th percentile) to $9,750 (75th percentile) across the United States.

What is a hacker salary? ›

The average salary of an ethical hacker in India is around Rs. Rs. 5.2 LPA.

How much do hackers get paid? ›

According to Payscale, the average compensation for a certified ethical hacker can range between $51,000 to $130,000 in the United States. The average yearly salary for most ethical hackers in the United States is roughly $82,000.

What are the 3 types of phishing? ›

What Are the Different Types of Phishing?
  • Spear Phishing.
  • Whaling.
  • Vishing.
  • Email Phishing.

What is social engineering phishing give an example? ›

Social engineering attacks are a type of cybercrime wherein the attacker fools the target through impersonation. They might pretend to be your boss, your supplier, someone from our IT team, or your delivery company. Regardless of who they're impersonating, their motivation is always the same — extracting money or data.

What is the difference between a spam and a Phish? ›

Spam is unsolicited email, instant messages, or social media messages. These messages are fairly easy to spot and can be damaging if you open or respond. Phishing is an email sent from an Internet criminal disguised as an email from a legitimate, trustworthy source.

What is the main objective for a hacker trying to social engineer you via a phishing email? ›

Social engineering is the art of manipulating, influencing, or deceiving you in order to gain control over your computer system. The hacker might use the phone, email, snail mail or direct contact to gain illegal access. Phishing, spear phishing, and CEO Fraud are all examples.

What is beginner phishing? ›

What is Phishing? Phishing is a common scam that attempts to lure you into giving up your username, password, or other sensitive information by masquerading as someone you know and trust. This can be done by phone, but is typically done in email.

How do phishers target their victims? ›

The attack starts with grabbing a ton of email addresses, all by inputting your domain. Sending Phishing emails to these email addresses is essentially free. The attacker then sits back (again sips on that energy drink - like the movies, of course) and waits until someone clicks on one of those Phishing emails.

What is the most common social engineering used by hackers? ›

Phishing. The most common form of social engineering attack is phishing. Phishing attacks exploit human error to harvest credentials or spread malware, usually via infected email attachments or links to malicious websites.

How do social engineers manipulate people? ›

Social engineers manipulate human feelings, such as curiosity or fear, to carry out schemes and draw victims into their traps. Therefore, be wary whenever you feel alarmed by an email, attracted to an offer displayed on a website, or when you come across stray digital media lying about.

What are the 5 social engineering attacks? ›

Types of Social Engineering Attacks. For the purposes of this article, let's focus on the five most common attack types that social engineers use to target their victims. These are phishing, pretexting, baiting, quid pro quo, and tailgating.

Is phishing the same as catfishing? ›

The term “catfish” was defined in the Oxford dictionary in 2014 (“to lure someone into a relationship by adopting a fictional online persona”), but is also a form of Phishing for information and so many legal and tech professionals refer to this as “Catphishing”.

Can you Phish through text? ›

Text message or SMS phishing—also called “smishing”—occurs when scam artists use deceptive text messages to lure consumers into providing their personal or financial information.

What are 4 things to look for in phishing messages? ›

Emails that contain the following should be approached with extreme caution, as these are common traits of phishing email:
  • Urgent action demands.
  • Poor grammar and spelling errors.
  • An unfamiliar greeting or salutation.
  • Requests for login credentials, payment information or sensitive data.
  • Offers that are too good to be true.

How do hackers target a specific person? ›

Hackers typically use spear phishing for targets in whom they've taken a deliberate interest. This process could take several days, weeks, or even months, depending on public (or privately-sourced) information about the target.

What can a hacker do with a USB? ›

Hackers can use USB sticks to infect your computers with malware that can detect when you plug in the USB drive and then download malicious code.

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