Is shortscan an IIS vulnerability scanner?

It targets one specific IIS weakness, the 8.3 short-name disclosure, rather than running a broad vulnerability scan. Run it with --isvuln for a fast yes or no on whether a host leaks short names, then let it enumerate the names in full.

Which IIS versions leak short names?

Any IIS server that generates 8.3 short names and answers requests for them can leak, which spans IIS 6 through 10 depending on configuration. The tilde short-name behavior can be turned off, so a hardened host reports Vulnerable: no.

How do I reconstruct the full filename from an 8.3 name?

Pass a combined wordlist and rainbow table with --wordlist. That table, generated by the companion upstream tool shortutil, maps a leaked fragment like ADMIN~1.ASP back to candidate long names such as Admin.aspx.

How do I check a host without running a full scan?

Run with --isvuln so shortscan bails as soon as it decides whether the service is vulnerable, instead of enumerating every name. Raise --patience to 1 on a slow or noisy target to make the decision more reliable.

What output formats does shortscan support?

Set --output human for readable console output or --output json for structured records you can parse downstream. Add --fullurl to print the full URL of each confirmed file rather than the short name alone.

Updated Jul 14, 2026

Fuzzing

Recover hidden IIS filenames via 8.3 short-name leakage

An IIS short filename enumeration tool.

Recover hidden filenames on IIS Confirm the short-name leak fast Seed content discovery

overview

What shortscan does

shortscan exploits the 8.3 short filename behavior in Microsoft IIS to recover the names of files and directories the server never meant to expose. Older IIS configurations generate legacy short names like SECRET~1.TXT for long filenames, and the server's response to requests for those names leaks enough to rebuild the start of the real name one character at a time.

The tool drives that reconstruction efficiently. It walks a defined character set, recurses into discovered subdirectories, and reads the server's hints through several autocomplete-detection modes: HTTP method magic, status codes, and Levenshtein distance. A patience setting and a stabilise mode pull coherent results from servers that respond inconsistently under load, and a shortutil-built wordlist plus rainbow table turns the recovered 8.3 fragments back into full filenames.

On Trickest, shortscan is a Fuzzing node that takes a file of URLs and writes a file and a folder of recovered names. Reach for it against IIS targets to surface hidden admin pages, backup archives, and config files, then feed the names into a content-discovery or scanning stage.

source github.com/bitquark/shortscan

use cases

Where shortscan fits

Recover hidden filenames on IIS

Enumerate 8.3 short names to reconstruct files and directories the server exposes through legacy naming, including backups and config files.

Confirm the short-name leak fast

Run with --isvuln to bail the moment shortscan decides whether the service leaks short names, when you only need a yes or no on a host.

Seed content discovery

Feed recovered short-name fragments into a directory-fuzzing stage to expand them into full paths worth requesting.

Tune against unstable servers

Raise --patience and enable --stabilise so the tool still produces coherent autocomplete results when a server responds inconsistently under load.

reference

shortscan inputs and flags

15 inputs

Name	Type	Flag	Description
urls	FILE	·	File of URLs to scan.
output	STRING	--output	Output format: human (readable) or json (default human).
is-vuln	BOOLEAN	--isvuln	Bail after determining whether the service is vulnerable.
wordlist	FILE	--wordlist	Combined wordlist and rainbow table generated with shortutil.
header	STRING	--header	Header to send with each request (repeat for multiple headers).
concurrency	STRING	--concurrency	Number of requests to make at once (default 20).
patience	STRING	--patience	Patience level when determining vulnerability (0 patient, 1 very patient).
autocomplete	STRING	--autocomplete	Autocomplete detection mode: auto, method, status, distance, or none.

Showing key inputs. shortscan exposes 15 inputs in total.

Full flag reference (15 inputs)

Name	Type	Flag	Description
urls	FILE	·	urls to scan
header	STRING	--header	header to send with each request (use multiple times for multiple headers)
output	STRING	--output	output format (human = human readable; json = JSON) [default: human]
is-vuln	BOOLEAN	--isvuln	bail after determining whether the service is vulnerable [default: false]
timeout	STRING	--timeout	per-request timeout in seconds [default: 10]
full-url	BOOLEAN	--fullurl	display the full URL for confirmed files rather than just the filename [default: false]
patience	STRING	--patience	patience level when determining vulnerability (0 = patient; 1 = very patient) [default: 0]
wordlist	FILE	--wordlist	combined wordlist + rainbow table generated with shortutil
stabilise	BOOLEAN	--stabilise	attempt to get coherent autocomplete results from an unstable server (generates more requests) [default: false]
verbosity	STRING	--verbosity	how much noise to make (0 = quiet; 1 = debug; 2 = trace) [default: 0]
characters	STRING	--characters	filename characters to enumerate [default: JFKGOTMYVHSPCANDXLRWEBQUIZ8549176320-_()&'!#$%@^{}~]
no-recurse	BOOLEAN	--norecurse	don't detect and recurse into subdirectories (disabled when autocomplete is disabled) [default: false]
concurrency	STRING	--concurrency	number of requests to make at once [default: 20]
header-file	FILE	--header-file	headers to send with each request (one per line)
autocomplete	STRING	--autocomplete	autocomplete detection mode (auto = autoselect; method = HTTP method magic; status = HTTP status; distance = Levenshtein distance; none = disable) [default: auto]

example

Run shortscan

shortscan · command

# confirm the host leaks 8.3 names, then enumerate with a wordlistshortscan --isvuln http://example.com/shortscan --wordlist resources/rainbow.txt --output json --fullurl --concurrency 40 http://example.com/

sample output

Shortscan v0.9.1 · an IIS short filename enumeration tool by bitquark━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━URL:                   http://example.com/Running:               Microsoft-IIS/10.0Vulnerable:            Yes!━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ADMIN~1.ASP    File   Admin (Admin.asp, Admin.aspx)BACKUP~1.ZIP   File   Backup (Backup.zip)CONFIG~1.BAK   File   Config (Config.bak)UPLOAD~1       Dir    Uploads

guidance

Choosing shortscan

Use shortscan against Microsoft IIS targets to recover hidden file and directory names through 8.3 short-name leakage. It is IIS-specific. For general directory brute force, pair it with a content-discovery fuzzer that expands the recovered fragments.

snallygaster

Looks for exposed files on any web server. Broader server-agnostic checks, not IIS short-name specific.

smuggler

Tests for request smuggling rather than filename leakage. A different IIS-and-proxy class of bug.

shuffledns

Subdomain resolution rather than path enumeration. Runs earlier in a recon pipeline.

faq

shortscan questions

shortscan is an IIS short filename enumeration tool by bitquark. It abuses the 8.3 short-name behavior in Microsoft IIS to recover hidden file and directory names that the server exposes through legacy naming, rebuilding each name one character at a time.

Run shortscan yourself

A file of IIS URLs feeds shortscan, which enumerates 8.3 short names and writes the recovered filenames as a queryable output.

Run shortscan in Trickest View the workflow

Facts on this page come from the live Trickest tool library.

Name

Type

Flag

Description

urls

FILE

File of URLs to scan.

output

STRING

--output

Output format: human (readable) or json (default human).

is-vuln

BOOLEAN

--isvuln

Bail after determining whether the service is vulnerable.

wordlist

FILE

--wordlist

Combined wordlist and rainbow table generated with shortutil.

header

STRING

--header

Header to send with each request (repeat for multiple headers).

concurrency

STRING

--concurrency

Number of requests to make at once (default 20).

patience

STRING

--patience

Patience level when determining vulnerability (0 patient, 1 very patient).

autocomplete

STRING

--autocomplete

Autocomplete detection mode: auto, method, status, distance, or none.

Name

Type

Flag

Description

urls

FILE

urls to scan

header

STRING

--header

header to send with each request (use multiple times for multiple headers)

output

STRING

--output

output format (human = human readable; json = JSON) [default: human]

is-vuln

BOOLEAN

--isvuln

bail after determining whether the service is vulnerable [default: false]

timeout

STRING

--timeout

per-request timeout in seconds [default: 10]

full-url

BOOLEAN

--fullurl

display the full URL for confirmed files rather than just the filename [default: false]

patience

STRING

--patience

patience level when determining vulnerability (0 = patient; 1 = very patient) [default: 0]

wordlist

FILE

--wordlist

combined wordlist + rainbow table generated with shortutil

stabilise

BOOLEAN

--stabilise

attempt to get coherent autocomplete results from an unstable server (generates more requests) [default: false]

verbosity

STRING

--verbosity

how much noise to make (0 = quiet; 1 = debug; 2 = trace) [default: 0]

characters

STRING

--characters

filename characters to enumerate [default: JFKGOTMYVHSPCANDXLRWEBQUIZ8549176320-_()&'!#$%@^{}~]

no-recurse

BOOLEAN

--norecurse

don't detect and recurse into subdirectories (disabled when autocomplete is disabled) [default: false]

concurrency

STRING

--concurrency

number of requests to make at once [default: 20]

header-file

FILE

--header-file

headers to send with each request (one per line)

autocomplete

STRING

--autocomplete

autocomplete detection mode (auto = autoselect; method = HTTP method magic; status = HTTP status; distance = Levenshtein distance; none = disable) [default: auto]

# confirm the host leaks 8.3 names, then enumerate with a wordlistshortscan --isvuln http://example.com/shortscan --wordlist resources/rainbow.txt --output json --fullurl --concurrency 40 http://example.com/

Shortscan v0.9.1 · an IIS short filename enumeration tool by bitquark━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━URL: http://example.com/Running: Microsoft-IIS/10.0Vulnerable: Yes!━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ADMIN~1.ASP File Admin (Admin.asp, Admin.aspx)BACKUP~1.ZIP File Backup (Backup.zip)CONFIG~1.BAK File Config (Config.bak)UPLOAD~1 Dir Uploads

Recover hidden IIS filenames via 8.3 short-name leakage

What shortscan does

Where shortscan fits

Recover hidden filenames on IIS

Confirm the short-name leak fast

Seed content discovery

Tune against unstable servers

shortscan inputs and flags

Run shortscan

Choosing shortscan

snallygaster

smuggler

shuffledns

shortscan questions

More Fuzzing tools

crithit

ffuf

ffuf-multi

ffuf-multi-od

ffuf-od

ffuf-virtual-hosts

Run shortscan yourself

Recover hidden IIS filenames via 8.3 short-name leakage

What shortscan does

Where shortscan fits

Recover hidden filenames on IIS

Confirm the short-name leak fast

Seed content discovery

Tune against unstable servers

shortscan inputs and flags

Run shortscan

Choosing shortscan

snallygaster

smuggler

shuffledns

shortscan questions

More Fuzzing tools

crithit

ffuf

ffuf-multi

ffuf-multi-od

ffuf-od

ffuf-virtual-hosts

Run shortscan yourself