hunt

hunt [-i <interface>] [-d] [-h]

-i
    Specifies the network interface for hunt to listen on. For example, 'eth0' or 'wlan0'.

-d
    Enables debug mode, providing more verbose output for troubleshooting.

-h
    Displays a brief help message and exits.

The hunt command refers to an obsolete network utility primarily designed for passive monitoring and active hijacking of TCP sessions. Developed in the late 1990s and popular in the early 2000s, it allowed attackers or auditors to intercept network traffic, perform Man-in-the-Middle (MITM) attacks using ARP spoofing, reset connections, and inject data into established TCP sessions. While powerful for its time, hunt is no longer widely used or maintained due to the prevalence of encrypted protocols (like HTTPS and SSH), which render its direct session manipulation capabilities largely ineffective, and the emergence of more sophisticated and actively developed tools. It typically operates in an interactive command-line interface after initial execution.

hunt is an old and unmaintained tool. It is not part of standard Linux distributions and must be compiled from source or obtained from specialized security archives. Its functionality is severely limited against modern encrypted protocols, making it largely ineffective for real-world session hijacking on the internet. Using this tool for malicious purposes is illegal and unethical.

After initial execution with optional command-line arguments, hunt typically enters an interactive mode where users can issue various sub-commands to perform actions like listing discovered hosts (l), initiating ARP attacks (a), performing host discovery (d), or selecting different sniffing modes (s).

Beyond basic sniffing, hunt supported advanced features such as TCP session desynchronization, connection reset, packet injection, and the ability to listen for specific strings in unencrypted traffic.

Developed by Gregory DuFour, hunt gained significant popularity in the early 2000s among network security professionals and enthusiasts. It was often included in early versions of penetration testing distributions like BackTrack (the predecessor to Kali Linux). Its development appears to have ceased, and it has been largely superseded by more advanced and actively maintained network analysis and attack tools. The rise of widespread encryption has also rendered many of its core functionalities obsolete for general internet traffic.

ettercap(8), wireshark(1), tcpdump(1), dsniff(8), arpspoof(8)