Information Gathering

maltego

maltego is the odd one out in this category: it’s a graphical link-analysis application, not a command-line scanner. You drop an “entity” onto a canvas — a domain, an email address, a person, an IP — and run transforms that pull related entities from data sources and draw them as connected nodes. Run enough of them and a picture builds itself: this domain resolves to that host, which shares a registrant with these other domains, which belong to these people. It’s the tool for turning scattered OSINT into a map you can actually reason about.

Because it’s a GUI app, Oniomarchy launches it straight into its own window from Security → Information Gathering → maltego — there’s no terminal help step, since maltego doesn’t print usage to a console. Installed from the AUR.

Using it

Maltego is driven entirely from its interface, so there’s no command line to show. The shape of the work is always the same:

  1. Sign in. Maltego needs an account (the free Community Edition is enough to start); the first launch walks you through it.
  2. Start a graph and drag an entity onto it — most investigations begin with a Domain or an Email Address.
  3. Run transforms. Right-click the entity and pick a transform (or “run all”) to fan out to related entities — DNS records, MX hosts, WHOIS registrants, linked social accounts, and so on.
  4. Follow the graph. Each new node can itself be transformed, so you pivot outward from what you know into what you don’t.

Maltego pairs naturally with the rest of this category: use theHarvester and recon-ng to gather raw findings, then bring the interesting entities into Maltego to see how they connect.