Security Blog
Posts tagged cracking
How strong are my passwords?
12 years
by Dustin Schultz
in Security
I think the passwords I use are pretty strong. They’re long, random, alphanumeric, and special characters. I know it’s possible to crack passwords, given enough time, so I thought I’d give it a try. I’m curious how long it’s going to take to crack. (more…)
Ophcrack or Oph-crap?
12 years
by Dustin Schultz
in Security
I did some simple tests tonight using the “free” rainbow tables that come with Ophcrack. I was expecting at least one of my passwords to be cracked but neither were. I think there were a couple reasons for this
- The password on my XP machine is 15 characters – Ophcrack only goes up to 14 with the free tables for XP
- The password on my Windows 7 machine is not in the dictionary – Ophcrack only uses a “based on dictionary” hybrid table with the free tables for Vista+
The good thing here is that for the “trivial” user, they won’t be able to get my passwords since the non-free tables go for $99 a piece or they’ll need to obtain other tables online.
So is it Ophcrack crap? No, probably not, that would be a little harsh since I bet the free tables would crack a huge majority of the general public’s passwords.
Online WPA Crackers
12 years
by Dustin Schultz
in Security
Almost everything, in some sense or another, is vulnerable to brute force. It’s just a matter of how long it takes for something to be brute forced that tends to it’s security. I found it pretty interesting that there are now online WPA crackers that will mount dictionary attacks against captured WPA authentication handshakes: (more…)
Cracking WEP with the Intel 3945abg
12 years
by Dustin Schultz
in Security
Since I’ve been reading a lot about security in networking, I figured I’d give the well known WEP cracking a try.
Common Misconceptions With Wep Cracking
- You need a special card to crack WEP keys.
- This is not true, with some caveats. Any card that can be switched to “monitor mode” can be used to crack WEP keys. The vast majority of cards can do this or someone has written a custom driver (e.g. Airport Extreme Cards on Macs) to enable it. HOWEVER, and this is a big however; if you want to crack WEP without waiting for days or even weeks, you need a card to supports “packet injection.” This list is much smaller but growing as the hardcore driver writers write custom drivers for them.