Welcome back, aspiring cyberwarriors! The ability to effectively map, crawl, and spider web applications can mean the difference between a successful engagement and missing critical vulnerabilities that could compromise an entire organization. Traditional crawling tools have served us well over the years, but as web applications become increasingly complex with modern JavaScript frameworks, single-page applications, […]

The post Web App Hacking: Katana, A Next-Generation Crawling and Spidering Framework first appeared on Hackers Arise.

Welcome back, aspiring cyberwarriors!

The ability to effectively map, crawl, and spider web applications can mean the difference between a successful engagement and missing critical vulnerabilities that could compromise an entire organization. Traditional crawling tools have served us well over the years, but as web applications become increasingly complex with modern JavaScript frameworks, single-page applications, and sophisticated authentication mechanisms, we need tools that can keep pace with these technological advances.

Enter Katana, a next-generation crawling and spidering framework developed by the security researchers at ProjectDiscovery. What sets Katana apart from traditional crawling solutions is its modern architecture and approach to web application analysis. While older tools were designed for simpler web applications that relied heavily on server-side rendering and traditional HTML structures, Katana understands and navigates the complex ecosystem of modern web development.

One of the most impressive aspects of Katana is its ability to handle JavaScript execution and dynamic content rendering. Traditional crawlers often miss critical functionality because they cannot execute JavaScript or understand how modern web applications dynamically generate content. Katana addresses this limitation by incorporating headless browser capabilities that allow it to fully render pages, execute JavaScript, and discover content that would otherwise remain hidden.

Let’s explore how to download, install, and utilize this powerful reconnaissance tool to enhance your web application security testing capabilities.

Installing Katana

There are few methouds of installing the tool. In this article, I’ll focus on installing using Go programming language.

First, verify if Go is already installed:

kali> go version

Install Katana using the Go package manager:

kali> go install github.com/projectdiscovery/katana/cmd/katana@latest

Verify the installation:

kali> katana -version

Crawling Modes

Katana supports two main crawling modes, each tailored to different types of web applications and use cases.

The Standard Mode is designed for speed and simplicity, making it ideal for traditional websites. It uses Go’s built-in HTTP library to handle requests and responses, parsing raw HTTP response bodies without executing JavaScript or rendering the DOM. This lightweight approach ensures fast performance but may miss endpoints in more complex applications that rely on browser-based events.

In contrast, the Headless Mode offers a more thorough crawl by simulating a real browser environment. This mode is especially useful for modern, JavaScript-heavy applications, as it captures both raw and rendered content. By mimicking a legitimate browser fingerprint (including TLS and user-agent headers), it improves coverage and detection of dynamic elements.

You can enable Headless Mode with the -headless flag and customize it further with several options:

• -sc / -system-chrome: Use the locally installed Chrome





• -sb / -show-browser: Show the browser window during execution





• -ho / -headless-options: Pass custom Chrome options





• -nos / -no-sandbox: Disable the Chrome sandbox (useful for root users)





• -cdd / -chrome-data-dir: Specify a custom Chrome data directory





• -scp / -system-chrome-path: Set a specific path to the Chrome executable





• -noi / -no-incognito: Disable incognito mode

Basic Website Reconnaissance

Let’s start with a fundamental reconnaissance scenario where we need to map a target website’s structure and discover all accessible endpoints. For this example let’s try to understand application’s structure of Vesti.ru – Russian news website.

kali> katana -u https://example-target.com -d 5 -c 10 -o target-crawl-results.txt

-u: Specifies the target URL

-d 5: Sets maximum crawling depth to 5 levels

-c 10: Uses 10 concurrent threads for faster crawling

-o: Saves all discovered URLs to a file

JavaScript-Heavy Application Crawling

Modern web applications often rely heavily on JavaScript for content generation. Here’s how to handle an AngularJS-based single-page application.

kali> katana -u https://angular-app.com -js-crawl -headless -timeout 30 -delay 2 -o angular-results.json

-js-crawl: Enables JavaScript execution during crawling to handle AngularJS controllers and directives

-headless: Uses headless Chrome for rendering AngularJS templates and executing digest cycles

-timeout 30: Sets 30-second timeout for page loads to accommodate AngularJS bootstrapping

-delay 2: Adds 2-second delay between requests to allow AngularJS routing transitions

Known Files Discovery

Crawl for common files like robots.txt and sitemap.xml that often reveal valuable information about website structure and hidden content. These files can provide insights into:

• robots.txt: Disallowed directories and files that may contain sensitive information





• sitemap.xml: Complete site structure including pages not linked from main navigation





• Other discovery files: Common configuration files, backup files, and administrative interfaces

kali> katana -u https://example.com -known-files all -d 3

Note that a minimum depth of 3 is required to ensure comprehensive discovery of all known files across the target application.

Filtering Capabilities

Katana offers robust filtering features that help users process, refine, and manage crawl output with precision. These capabilities make it easy to isolate valuable data, reduce noise, and tailor results to match specific goals.

Users can filter output by specific fields, include or exclude URLs based on extensions or regular expressions, and even define custom fields using a YAML configuration file. This flexibility is crucial for handling the often large volume of data produced during a crawl, ensuring that users can focus on the most relevant information.

Some key filtering options include:

• -field or -f: Display specific fields (e.g., url, path, fqdn, rdn)





• -store-field or -sf: Save selected fields to disk





• -extension-match or -em: Show only URLs with specific file extensions





• -extension-filter or -ef: Exclude URLs with specific file extensions





• -match-regex or -mr: Include URLs that match a regex pattern





• -filter-regex or -fr: Exclude URLs that match a regex pattern

Example:
To extract only .js URLs (including those with query parameters) and save their full URLs to a file, you could run:

kali> katana -u https://example.com -match-regex “\.js” -f url -sf url -o js-files.txt

Summary

Whether you’re conducting penetration tests, bug bounty research, or comprehensive cyberwar operations, Katana’s advanced capabilities and modern architecture make it an essential addition to your hacking toolkit.

If you’re serious about sharpening your offensive security skills, consider our Subscriber Pro package— designed to take your expertise to the next level.

The post Web App Hacking: Katana, A Next-Generation Crawling and Spidering Framework first appeared on Hackers Arise.

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