Welcome back, aspiring cyberwarriors!
Cash App is a significant player in the digital payments market, holding approximately 26% of the US market share and serving around 57 million active users as of 2024. It is among the most popular mobile payment apps in the United States, following closely behind PayPal and Apple Pay. As OSINT analysts, we must pay attention to these trends.
In this article, we’ll take a quick look at what Cash App is, how to find a Cash App account, and how to gather some useful information about the user. Let’s get rolling!
Step #1: What is Cash App?
Cash App is a mobile financial app. It primarily serves as a digital wallet, allowing people to send and receive money instantly using a unique $Cashtag, phone number, or email address. Also, you can get a customizable Cash App Card, like a debit card, to spend money, receive direct deposits early, save money separately, and even borrow small amounts.
In short, Cash App combines straightforward peer-to-peer payments with features like investing, crypto, and spending tools, all in one app. That sounds good, doesn’t it? But let’s see what we can gather using OSINT.
Step #2: Discovering Cash App Accounts
The first step in any Cash App OSINT effort is determining whether your target actually has a Cash App account. When someone signs up for a Cash App account, they pick a cashtag, which is basically their public ID. The URL for Cash App profiles is pretty straightforward. If you know someone’s cashtag or think you might, you just go to cash.app followed by a slash and the cashtag with the dollar sign in front. For instance, if the cashtag is $JohnDoe, you’d head to https://cash.app/$JohnDoe.
If you’re looking to check a list of usernames, the Sherlock tool is a solid option, and we’ve even written about it before. But if you prefer the command line, you can use curl to check things out, too. For example, to see if a cashtag exists, you’d run this command:
curl -s -o /dev/null -w "%{http_code}" "https://cash.app/\$JohnDoe"
In this command, the `-s` flag makes curl run quietly, so it doesn’t show progress info. The `-o /dev/null` option just discards the response body because we’re only after the HTTP status code. The `-w “%{http_code}”` bit tells curl to show us the status code of the response. If you get a 200 status code back, that means the profile page is up, and the cashtag is legit. A 404 or a redirect to the Cash App homepage means the cashtag isn’t registered.
Step #3: Extracting Hidden Profile Photos From the Web Page
Once you’ve confirmed that a Cash App profile exists, the next step is to dig into any hidden info on the profile page, especially the profile photos that might be covered up by the QR code on the web version. Just hit F12 and click on Sources, and you’ll find some useful stuff saved in the variable profile.
In the screenshot above, you can spot the user’s name, their cashtag, and even a link to their profile picture. Also, it shows that this account is based in the US, it’s a personal account, and it’s not verified.
Summary
By using such simple techniques, we can start gathering valuable information about Cash App users. Cross-platform correlation via reverse image search and multi-platform username tools can be a valuable addition to the techniques mentioned in this article.
If you’re looking to enhance your OSINT skills, consider exploring our OSINT training. If you need assistance in uncovering the truth, don’t hesitate to reach out to us at [email protected], and we’ll conduct a comprehensive OSINT investigation for you.
Source: HackersArise
Source Link: https://hackers-arise.com/open-source-intelligence-osint-getting-started-with-osint-on-cash-app/