Password Cracking Explained

In this post I’ll show you the process behind cracking password.

This will be introduction to the couple method of password cracking : Guessing , Brute Force Attack & Dictionary Attack .
Here I will cracking something simple and legal - a PDF file.

If you have PDF and you forget the password, its legal to use password cracking software to retrieve it.

Guessing

It is the easiest way to gain access . Here are few guessing tips:

Try common passwords , go here.

• So first try numeric counting up to the number 9 . You can try any of combination from passwords on that page , you’ll be suprised how often that actually work.
  
• Name combination (ex. markhunt, mhunt, etc)
  
• Personal likes (ex. bands, songs, sports, movie charactes, etc.)
  
• Combinations (ex. jazzjoe, eojzza)
  
• Try adding numbers at the end , such as the number 1 or an important year.

If the person that created the password is not technically aware, then after trying this few tips, your would probably guess his password.

But if that not works, you’ll need to move to something more advanced.

Password Cracking Using Software

In this case we'lll use PDF unloking software.

Download Windows Free PDF Unlocker from here.


PDF unlocker envols two password cracking methods called Brute Force and Dictionary Attack.

First select PDF that you want to crack and select the destination to save unlocked version.
You’ll see two options for minimal and maximal length of password.

Dictionary Attack

• Very common password cracking attack.
  
• Will find the password if it is an actual word.
  
• Scans through a word file until it finds the correct password.
  
• With this program you can create and use own dictionary list, but if you browse through installation
  directory you’ll see one has been already installed with this program.

If this process fails, you should use Brute Force Attack.

Brute Force Attack

• Uses a list of all possible characters.
  
• Systematically cycles through all the characters unitil the password is found.
  
• This program offers sufix and prefix fields in case you know how the password begins and ends.

I think this post would have given you an idea regarding the science behind the most commonly used password cracking techniques.

Feel free to ask if you encounter any form of doubts.