Find

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find / -name *.txt   # Find all .txt files on the system

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find / -name password*   # Find all files on the system starting with password

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find . -type f -exec cat {} + | grep -a 'password'   # Find all files in a folder and its sub folders and cat them and grep for files containing the word password

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find . -type f -exec cat {} + | grep -Eo '[0-9]{1,3}\.[0-9]{1,3}\.[0-9]{1,3}\.[0-9]{1,3}'   # Find all files in a folder and its sub folders and cat them and grep for files containing IP addresses

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find / -type f -perm 0777   # Find all world writable files on the system

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find / 2>>/dev/null | grep "shadow.bak"   # Find backup file of the /etc/shadow file

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find / 2>>/dev/null | grep -i "passwords"   # Find a file called passwords

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find / -xdev -type f -print0 2>/dev/null | xargs -0 grep -E '^[a-z0-9]{32}$' 2>/dev/null   # Searches the entire system for files containing a string of 32 characters containing letters and numbers

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find / -type f -name *.xml   # Find all files only with the .xml extension

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find /home -type f -iname "passwords.txt"   # Find all files only in the home directory with the name passwords.txt

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find / -type d -name *exploits*   # Find all directories containing the word exploits

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find / -type f -user "admin"   # Find all files on the system owned by admin

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find / -type f -group "admins" 2>/dev/null   # Find all the files on the system owned by the group "admins"

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find / -type f -size 150c   # Find all files on the system that are exactly 150 bytes (c = bytes; k = KiB's; M = MiB's)

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find /home -type f -size -2k -name "*.txt"   # Find all files in the home directory that end in .txt and are less than 2 kilobytes in size

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find / -type f -perm 644   # Find all files on the system that are readable and writable by the file owner (6) and readable by everybody else 4 & 4

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find / -type f -perm 444   # Find all files on the system that are only readable by everybody (Octal format)

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find / -type f -perm o=w -name "*.sh"   # Find all the files on the system where the group "Others" has write permissions on files ending .sh (symbolic format)

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find /usr/bin -type f -user root -perm /u=s   # Find all files in the /usr/bin directory (recursive) that are owned by root and have at least the SUID permission (symbolic format)

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find / -type f -atime -10 -name "*.png"   # Find all files ending with extension .png that have not been accessed in the last 10 days (a = accessed; m = modified; c = status changed)

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find /usr/bin -type f -mmin -120   # Find all files in the directory /usr/bin that have not been modified in the last 2 hours

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find ~/workflows -type f -newermt 2016-09-11 ! -newermt 2025-09-13 2>/dev/null   # Find files in a specific directory that was modified on the 2025-09-12