Hacker's Adda

OK since my Beginners guide to password cracking has become popular enough I have now made a tutorial to go along side the guide to bring you an even better understanding of password cracking. OK so there are a few things you need to do first, so they are:

What Software Do I Need?
As mentioned in the guide you will need to download the Elcomsoft Advanced password Recovery Studio. This is available to purchase from the elcomsoft site (1) legally. Other additional sources are also available such as download.com (trial) and various torrent sites. A torrent file has been attached to the tutorial.

How To Install Software?
The installation of the software is very simple, really keep clicking next until the software is installed. To access the various programs simply go to the start menu and find the program. For this tutorial we will be using the "Advanced PDF password Recovery" program.

Using the software to crack a PDF password file.
OK now were into the nitty gritty, next you need to download the Project.zip file and extract the contents to a new folder of your choice. Try to open the passworded.pdf file. Notice you get a password request window displayed to you. Obviously you don't know the password and I wont tell you it, So how can you view the contents of this really important pdf document? Well lets crack it!

1. First start the password cracker:
Start Menu \ Elcomsoft \ Advanced PDF password Recovery Professional

2. Under the section "Encrypted PDF-file" you will find a box to enter a path to an encrypted file. Just next to this is the browse option, click this and browse to the folder you extracted the Project.zip too and select the "passworded.pdf" file.

3. Next click the "Dictionary" tab (if not already open) to enter the options for carrying out a dictionary attack against a specified file.

4. Now we need to set the path of the dictionary file to use. This is in the project zip. Again using the browse button, go to the folder where you extracted the project.zip too and select the "Dictionary.dic" file. This file contains the top 10 most common passwords used by people.

We do have other options to set like "Try all upper/lower case combinations" which will increase your chances of the correct password but will slow down the processing time. You can play with these options later but for now we are not going to set any additional options.

5. Now click the start button at the top and watch as the password to the very important PDF file is found and displayed to you. You can now save the password details as a text file or save the decrypted file.

Theoretically Speaking!
You now know the basics of password cracking a file that you have already obtained and is stored on your local machine. In theory you can now crack any file you like simply using the correct type of password cracking software, for example the Elcomsoft package was chosen for this reason as it contains many programs for different types of file, and the file is stored on your local machine. Try changing the password on the PDF document or creating your own and try to crack it again. once you understand the concept of Dictionary Attacks to obtain a password then try out the brute force method.

In a vicious hacker situation the password cracking process would be carried out after they have initially hacked into the system and physically copied the data (files as such) to their machine to crack later as some files may take a huge amount of processing time and power to crack the password if a big dictionary is used or you are using long or strong passwords to attempt to crack it. In theory the hacker would have done their background research on their victim and already have a specific password dictionary made for that user.

Well I hope this has been helpful to you and if you notice any mistakes or think a change is needed, please get in contact with me and I will see what I can do. All mistakes will be corrected as soon as they are found. An again I hope this has helped you out.

NOTES:
The "Decrypt Now" feature for some reason wouldn't save my decrypted PDF file like it should have. Never the less you now know the password, Simply open the "passworded.pdf" file as normal and enter the password obtained by the cracker.

Posted in HT-Password Cracking