GO KALI FREE
BeginnerTools

CeWL Guide: Custom Wordlist Generator

Learn CeWL for generating custom wordlists by spidering websites, creating targeted password lists for penetration testing and security assessments.

#cewl#wordlist#password#spider#custom wordlist generator

Why You Need CeWL

You need password wordlists tailored to a specific target organization — CeWL spiders the target's website and generates custom wordlists from the words it finds. Targeted wordlists are far more effective than generic lists for password guessing and dictionary attacks.

Prerequisites

  • Understanding of password attacks
  • Familiarity with web crawling concepts
  • Authorization for target websites

    • How CeWL Works

  • Sends HTTP requests to the target
  • Extracts words from HTML content
  • Follows links within depth limits
  • Filters by length and removes duplicates
  • Outputs targeted wordlist

    • Installation

    sudo apt install cewl

    Basic Usage

    cewl http://target.com -w wordlist.txt

    Key Options

    | Option | Description |

    |--------|-------------|

    | -w FILE | Output file |

    | -d DEPTH | Spider depth |

    | -m MIN | Min word length |

    | -x MAX | Max word length |

    | -c | Include word counts |

    | -e | Include emails |

    | -o | Convert to lowercase |

    Practical Examples

    cewl http://target.com -d 3 -m 5 -w custom-wordlist.txt
cewl http://target.com -e -w wordlist-with-emails.txt
cewl http://target.com -m 6 -x 12 -w targeted-wordlist.txt

    Using with Other Tools

    cewl http://target.com -w cewl-wordlist.txt
hydra -l admin -P cewl-wordlist.txt ssh://192.168.1.100

    Common Mistakes

    Setting depth too high. Not setting minimum word length. Forgetting lowercase conversion.

    Best Practices

    Tailor wordlists to targets. Combine with common wordlists. Set -m 6 for passwords.

    Related Tools

  • **Hydra**: Network login cracker
  • **John the Ripper**: Offline cracking
  • **Hashcat**: GPU-accelerated cracking

    • Related Articles

  • [Hydra Guide](/articles/hydra-guide)
  • [Password Security Guide](/articles/password-security-guide)
  • [Medusa Guide](/articles/medusa-guide)

    • Summary

    CeWL creates targeted wordlists by spidering websites. Custom wordlists are more effective than generic ones for password attacks.

    Knowledge Check

  • What does CeWL stand for?
  • Why are custom wordlists more effective?
  • What does `-m` control?
  • How to include emails?
  • Why use `-o` lowercase conversion?

    • Frequently Asked Questions

    What is CeWL?

    CeWL (Custom Word List generator) spiders websites to create custom wordlists based on website content. It generates targeted password lists more effective than generic wordlists for brute force attacks.

    Why are custom wordlists more effective?

    Custom wordlists contain words specific to the target organization (employee names, product names, internal terms). They are more likely to match passwords users create based on company-specific information.

    What does the -m flag control?

    The `-m` flag sets the minimum word length to extract (e.g., `-m 6` extracts words with 6+ characters). Use higher values for password lists and lower values for usernames and content analysis.

    How do you include emails in the wordlist?

    Use the `-e` flag to extract email addresses found on the website. These are useful for username enumeration and targeted brute force attacks against specific user accounts.

    Why use -o for lowercase conversion?

    The `-o` flag converts all words to lowercase, which is critical for password attacks since most people use lowercase passwords. It also prevents duplicate entries and standardizes the wordlist format.

    What does the -d flag control?

    The `-d` flag sets the spider depth, controlling how many links deep CeWL crawls. A depth of 3 follows links up to 3 levels from the starting page. Higher depths crawl more but take longer.

    How do you use CeWL with Hydra?

    Generate a wordlist: `cewl http://target.com -w cewl.txt`. Then use with Hydra: `hydra -l admin -P cewl.txt ssh://target`. CeWL creates targeted passwords based on the target's website content.

    What does the -c flag do?

    The `-c` flag adds word frequency counts to the output, showing how often each word appears on the site. Words appearing more frequently are more likely to be used in passwords.

    How do you combine CeWL with common wordlists?

    Use CeWL for site-specific words, then combine with common lists: `cat cewl.txt rockyou.txt | sort -u > combined.txt`. This gives you both targeted and generic passwords for maximum coverage.