Try out Google Hacking...

[Soumikbhat]

Can anyone provide me with an explanation of what does the ' Index of/ ' cmnd do in google..?

I mean I've seen many sources on the net asking to experiment with searches like :

Index of /admin
Index of /passwd
Index of /password
Index of /mail

I'm wanting a source/explanation for these searches....what does this exactly do?

[berry120]

You're essentially searching for directories that have appeared in Google results but probably weren't designed to, and due to the nature of those directories they might contain some sensitive information you could use.

In reality, this sort of thing barely worked 10 years ago, let alone now - and besides, that search isn't thorough enough even if you were trying to uncover something!

[Soumikbhat]

and besides, that search isn't thorough enough even if you were trying to uncover something!

Can you please detail it out a bit more....I mean why isn't it enough, etc etc....?

Basically what I've understood is that this sort of strategy is kind-of trial-and-hit type....we may end up seeing something that might contain secret info....but this seldom helps in hacking target sites....like say I target www.just4example.com, then how does this help?

[Soumikbhat]

Also recently I discovered that the passwords/user id's that can be retrieved by these methods do not work in their respective sites (I tried out a few today, without success)

[berry120]

I'm not surprised - that's why I said it barely worked 10 years ago let alone now! These days people are a lot more security conscious and generally just won't do things like that that they would have perhaps done when the internet was first taking off.