| name | analyzing-malicious-url-with-urlscan |
| description | URLScan.io is a free service for scanning and analyzing suspicious URLs. It captures screenshots, DOM content, HTTP transactions, JavaScript behavior, and network connections of web pages in an isolat |
| domain | cybersecurity |
| subdomain | phishing-defense |
| tags | ["phishing","email-security","social-engineering","dmarc","awareness","url-analysis","threat-intelligence"] |
| version | 1.0 |
| author | mahipal |
| license | Apache-2.0 |
| atlas_techniques | ["AML.T0052"] |
| nist_csf | ["PR.AT-01","DE.CM-09","RS.CO-02","DE.AE-02"] |
Analyzing Malicious URL with URLScan
Overview
URLScan.io is a free service for scanning and analyzing suspicious URLs. It captures screenshots, DOM content, HTTP transactions, JavaScript behavior, and network connections of web pages in an isolated environment. This skill covers using URLScan's web interface and API to investigate phishing URLs, credential harvesting pages, and malicious redirects without exposing the analyst's system to risk.
When to Use
- When investigating security incidents that require analyzing malicious url with urlscan
- When building detection rules or threat hunting queries for this domain
- When SOC analysts need structured procedures for this analysis type
- When validating security monitoring coverage for related attack techniques
Detection Gaps & Validation
- Cloaking and geofencing: phishing kits serve a benign page to datacenter/scanner IPs (urlscan's egress) and reveal the real credential form only to victim geos/User-Agents. A clean verdict over a generic landing page is NOT proof of safety - re-scan with
country= set to the target region and a mobile UA.
- Cached vs. live result: verify you are not viewing a stale scan; submit a fresh
visibility: private scan because attackers rotate payloads and tear down infrastructure within hours.
- MFA/AiTM proxies: an AiTM page (Evilginx/Tycoon 2FA) mirrors the real login and often shows a legitimate-looking Microsoft/Okta screenshot - judge on the domain, cert, and redirect chain, not the screenshot.
- CAPTCHA / Cloudflare Turnstile gates and multi-hop redirects can stop the crawler before the phishing page loads; follow the redirect chain manually and look for the gate.
- Confirm a hit: correlate the urlscan verdict (malicious) with a credential
<form action> posting off-domain, a newly registered domain (<30 days), brand logos served from a non-brand ASN, and a second source (VirusTotal/PhishTank). Do not conclude benign from a single clean scan.
- FP tuning: legitimate SSO and link-wrappers (Proofpoint urldefense, Microsoft Safe Links) also chain redirects - allowlist known wrapper domains before alerting.
Prerequisites
- URLScan.io account (free tier available, API key for automation)
- Python 3.8+ with requests library
- Understanding of HTTP protocols and web technologies
- Familiarity with phishing URL patterns
Key Concepts
URLScan Capabilities
- Safe browsing: Renders URLs in isolated Chromium instance
