Do not: Use SecLists against systems you do not own or have explicit written permission to test. Even listing directories with raft-large-directories.txt constitutes active reconnaissance and can violate computer fraud laws in many jurisdictions.
Do: Hash-verify your downloaded lists if you are in a high-compliance environment (PCI-DSS, HIPAA). Malicious modifications to wordlists could be used to implant backdoor payloads. Verify using:
sha256sum /opt/SecLists/README.md
Compare with the official GitHub commit hash. installing seclists
hydra -l admin -P /usr/share/seclists/Passwords/Common-Credentials/10k-most-common.txt ssh://target.com
gobuster dir -u http://example.com -w /usr/share/seclists/Discovery/Web_Content/common.txt
Remove lines containing comments or spaces:
grep -v "^#" $SECLISTS/Discovery/Web_Content/directory-list-2.3-medium.txt | grep -v "^\s*$" > clean-list.txt
SecLists is the security tester's companion. It is a collection of multiple types of lists used during security assessments, collected in one place. List types include usernames, passwords, URLs, fuzzing payloads, magic bytes, web shells, and binary exploitation aids. Do not: Use SecLists against systems you do
Because it is maintained by the community, it remains one of the most up-to-date open-source resources for dictionary attacks and discovery phases.
Create shortcuts to avoid typing long paths: Compare with the official GitHub commit hash
echo 'export SECLISTS="/opt/SecLists"' >> ~/.bashrc
echo 'alias seclists="ls $SECLISTS"' >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc
Now, reference any list like: $SECLISTS/Discovery/Web_Content/common.txt
Never use a massive list for directory busting initially. Start small to reduce noise.
# Quick scan
gobuster dir -u https://target.com -w /usr/share/seclists/Discovery/Web-Content/common.txt
# Recursive scan with extensions
gobuster dir -u https://target.com -w /usr/share/seclists/Discovery/Web-Content/directory-list-2.3-medium.txt -x php,html,js -r