Overview

Discovery Target Exclusions allow you to proactively prevent specific assets or patterns from being discovered during asset enumeration. When exclusions are configured, these targets are actively filtered out of the discovery process, helping you focus on relevant assets and reduce noise in your asset inventory. This feature is particularly useful for excluding internal staging environments, test domains, government domains, or any other assets that should not be included in your attack surface monitoring.
Quick Access: Discovery Target Exclusions are managed in Settings → Discovery Target Exclusions.

How It Works

The exclusion system operates at the discovery layer, filtering out targets before they are added to your asset inventory. This ensures that excluded patterns are never discovered, scanned, or monitored by the platform.

Supported Exclusion Types

Subdomains

Exclude specific subdomains from discovery

IP Addresses

Exclude individual IP addresses or ranges

Wildcard Patterns

Use wildcard patterns to exclude multiple targets

Configuration

Adding Exclusions

  1. Navigate to Settings → Discovery Target Exclusions or visit cloud.projectdiscovery.io/settings/exclusions
  2. Click + Add Exclusion to open the exclusion configuration panel
  3. Enter your exclusion patterns in the text area (one pattern per line)
  4. Click Add to save your exclusions

Exclusion Pattern Examples

Basic Subdomain Exclusions

staging.company.com
dev.company.com
test.company.com
internal-tools.company.com

Wildcard Patterns

*.staging.company.com
test.*.company.com
dev-*.internal.company.com

IP Address Exclusions

192.168.1.100
10.0.0.0/8
172.16.0.0/12

Government and Restricted Domains

*.gov
*.mil
*.edu

Pattern Syntax

Wildcard Support

The exclusion system supports wildcard patterns using the asterisk (*) character:
  • Prefix wildcards: *.staging.company.com - Excludes any subdomain ending with .staging.company.com
  • Suffix wildcards: test.*.company.com - Excludes any subdomain starting with test. and ending with .company.com
  • Multiple wildcards: *.staging.*.company.com - Supports multiple wildcards in a single pattern

Pattern Matching Rules

  • Patterns are case-insensitive
  • Each line represents a separate exclusion pattern
  • Patterns are matched during the discovery phase
  • Once excluded, targets will not appear in any subsequent discovery results

Best Practices

Important Considerations

Exclusions are Permanent: Once a target is excluded, it will not be discovered in future enumerations. Make sure your exclusion patterns are accurate to avoid missing important assets.
Discovery Impact: Exclusions only affect the discovery process. If an asset was already discovered before adding an exclusion, it will remain in your inventory until manually removed.
Testing Patterns: Start with specific exclusions and gradually expand to broader patterns. This helps ensure you don’t accidentally exclude important assets.

Managing Exclusions

Viewing Current Exclusions

All active exclusions are displayed in the Discovery Target Exclusions interface as individual items in a list format. Each exclusion shows:
  • The exact pattern configured
  • A remove button (X icon) for easy deletion

Removing Exclusions

To remove individual exclusions:
  1. Navigate to Settings → Discovery Target Exclusions or visit cloud.projectdiscovery.io/settings/exclusions
  2. Locate the exclusion you want to remove in the list
  3. Click the X icon next to the exclusion pattern
  4. The exclusion will be immediately removed from your configuration
Removing exclusions will allow those targets to be discovered in future enumerations.

Integration with Discovery Workflows

Target exclusions integrate seamlessly with all discovery methods and are applied globally across the platform:
  • Automatic Discovery: Exclusions apply to all automated asset discovery processes
  • Manual Enumeration: Manually triggered discoveries respect exclusion patterns
  • Cloud Integration: Cloud-discovered assets are filtered against exclusion patterns
Global Application: All exclusion patterns apply to every discovery operation across your organization, ensuring consistent filtering regardless of the discovery method or who initiates it.

By implementing target exclusions, you can ensure that your asset discovery process focuses on the assets that matter most to your security posture while automatically filtering out noise and irrelevant targets.