Cariddi: Go Tool Crawls Domain URLs & Scans Endpoints, Secrets

Cariddi: All-in-One Web Asset Scanning and Sensitive Information Detection Tool

In web security and penetration testing, we often need to use multiple tools in combination: crawlers to collect URLs, directory scanners to discover endpoints, and sensitive information detectors to find secrets. This process is not only tedious but also requires manual integration of different tools' outputs. The recently discovered Cariddi project attempts to integrate these functionalities into a single tool, providing an all-in-one web asset scanning experience.

Core Features and Use Cases

Cariddi is a command-line tool developed in Go, whose core functionality is to receive a list of domains, discover URLs through crawling, and then perform multi-dimensional scanning on these URLs. Its most prominent feature is integration - it simultaneously supports endpoint discovery, sensitive information detection (keys, tokens, API keys), file extension identification, and other capabilities, eliminating the hassle of switching between tools.

In practical use, the most intuitive experience is its multi-task parallel processing capability. For example, with just one command:

cat targets.txt | cariddi -s -e -ext 2

you can accomplish three things simultaneously: crawl target URLs (-e enables endpoint discovery), scan for sensitive information (-s enables secret detection), and identify medium-sensitivity file extensions (-ext 2 specifies file sensitivity level). This "one run, multiple gains" model is particularly suitable for bug bounty hunters or penetration testers conducting initial asset assessment.

Configuration flexibility is another highlight of Cariddi. It supports custom concurrency (-c parameter, default 20), request delay (-d parameter), timeout (-t parameter), and can even connect to Burp Suite for traffic proxy analysis via the -proxy option. For scenarios requiring simulation of real user behavior, it also supports random User-Agents (-rua) and custom request headers (-headers) to reduce the probability of being blocked by WAFs.

Technical Implementation and Tool Comparison

As a Go language project, Cariddi naturally inherits Go's concurrency advantages. It uses goroutines to handle multiple tasks and channels to control concurrency, maintaining high performance while avoiding resource exhaustion. The project integrates go-colly as the crawler core, a lightweight yet powerful web crawling framework that provides a reliable foundation for URL collection.

Compared to similar tools, Cariddi is more oriented towards comprehensive scanning rather than a single function. For example:

• Compared with directory scanning tools like dirsearch and ffuf, Cariddi's endpoint discovery capability is not the most in-depth, but it excels at combining crawlers to dynamically discover paths rather than relying solely on dictionary brute-forcing
• Compared with sensitive information detection tools like gitleaks and truffleHog, its rule base may not be as comprehensive, but it can detect response content in real-time during scanning without needing to pre-download files
• Compared with professional crawlers like gospider and hakrawler, its crawling function is relatively basic, but it excels at the seamless connection between "crawling + scanning"

This "all-round rather than specialized" characteristic makes Cariddi more suitable as an initial scanning tool - quickly obtaining an overall asset profile of the target, then using professional tools for in-depth testing on key directions.

Practical Experience and Considerations

In a test environment, I scanned several public vulnerability testing targets (such as testphp.vulnweb.com) with Cariddi and found that its default configuration can already meet most basic needs. By default, it ignores common static resources (png, jpg, svg, etc.) to avoid scanning noise; the -intensive parameter can also enable subdomain scanning to help discover associated assets under the main domain.

In terms of output formats, Cariddi supports plain text (-plain), HTML reports (-oh), and JSON (-json). The HTML report includes categorized statistics and timelines, suitable for presenting results to non-technical personnel. For scenarios requiring further automated processing, the JSON format can directly interface with data analysis tools.

However, I also found some points that need attention during use:

1. False Positive Issue: Sensitive information scanning relies on regular expression matching, which may occasionally misjudge strings similar to key formats as real keys, requiring manual verification
2. Resource Consumption: When enabling -intensive and high concurrency (e.g., -c 100), memory usage will increase significantly. It is recommended to adjust according to the target server's performance
3. JS Rendering Limitations: Support for dynamically loaded content is limited. Complex single-page applications may need to be used with headless browsers

Target Audience and Value Assessment

Cariddi is most suitable for two types of people:一是漏洞赏金猎人 and penetration testing engineers who need to quickly assess target assets; and development teams who can integrate it into CI/CD processes to detect sensitive information leaks before code deployment.

Its advantage lies in lowering the threshold for security scanning - there's no need to master the usage methods of multiple tools, as one command can complete multi-dimensional detection. For Go language developers, the project source code also has reference value: how to design concurrency control, how to implement an extensible rule engine, and how to handle complex HTTP request scenarios are all excellent learning cases.

Of course, it cannot completely replace professional tools. If deep directory brute-forcing is needed, ffuf may be more suitable; if precise key detection is required, gitleaks has a more comprehensive rule base. Cariddi's best positioning is as the starting point of the scanning process, helping users quickly establish target awareness and identify directions worthy of in-depth exploration.

Conclusion

As an integrated web scanning tool, Cariddi effectively simplifies the web asset assessment process through the "crawler + multi-dimensional scanning" model. It may not be as deep as professional tools in a single function, but it excels in convenience and comprehensiveness. For scenarios where you need to quickly grasp the target asset situation, it provides an efficient solution.

If you often need to use crawlers, directory scanners, and sensitive information detection tools in combination, you might as well try Cariddi - it may not become your only tool, but it will most likely become an important part of your workflow.