WPA can now be broken in 60 seconds

The WPA, wireless encryption protocol is no more secure. In an earlier attack, WPA could be cracked in 12 to 15 minutes. But now, after some research from Japanese scientists, the WPA algorithm can be cracked in under a minute.

This has been a breakthrough in the field of the establishment of the fact that wireless encryption technology has not been given much thought in the beginning, and now it is growing up to be a huge problem.

Earlier WEP had been proved to have so many vulnerabilities. And we hackers were able to crack a network in under an hour, if near enough the source to get sufficient packets. It didn't seem to be any problem at all, but we had to get those handshake packets for WPA, and then use dictionary or brute-force attacks. But now with this revolution brought about by these scientists, we cannot anymore consider WPA as a secure algorithm.

However, this has been proven to work with TKIP (Temporal Key Integrity Protocol) only, and does not work with AES (Advanced Encryption System) or the WPA2 protocols.

This post has more information about this.

Password cracking - The brute force method

The brute force method of password cracking, basically consists of generating every possible combination of all the characters that can be used in the password, and then encrypt each to be checked for a positive match with the original encrypted password.

The brute force method of password cracking, basically consists of generating every possible combination of all the characters that can be used in the password, and then encrypt each to be checked for a positive match with the original encrypted password.

For example, if the encrypted password for my application is hyrulsjcl, and the original password be abcd(don't try this for my account... it's only a dummy example...). Then I try out all combinations, of all characters, in this case, lowercase alphanumeric characters, the combinations being: a, b, c, d, e, f.... z, aa, ab, ac, ad, ..... az, aaa, aab, aac, .... In this way, therewill be a positive ID for abcd, which will encrypt to hyulsjcl and password cracking will be complete.

One of the biggest shortcomings of this technique is that it is a very time taking process. Generating every possible combination, and then encrypting them takes a hell lot of time. As, we have to try out all possible combinations, the hackers had invented new hybrid technique for brute force, in which not every combination is tried out in sequence. Those password crackers, also termed smart brute force crackers check for the hash (the encryption) pattern, and then accordingly choose the next string to be matched for a positive ID.

So, here is a graphic description of how this all goes...

Brute force is not a very easy thing, when it comes to cracking real big passwords. But again, everything has its pros and cons...

a sample brute force cracker - It cracks passwords encrypted by DES, typically, a linux password is encrypted with the DES (Made by me of course ;-)).

a brute force string generator - It simply generates strings. It's got a fast algorithm. Lack of time led to not developing a cracker with it. Very soon, I'll upload that program. It will crack MD5 and DES passwords for linux.

NOTE: 1. You are downloading these files from: http://xtremehcl.googlepages.com The official website of HCl.
2. The original copy of this post is in the official HCl website's this page
Keep watching.....

Password cracking - A brief intro to how they work and to bypass them...

Passwords are everywhere...

Take any application, and it is probably very likely protected by some security measure (most likely a password). Passwords have become the most widely used, and one of the most dependable security measures in present cyber society. Take your email account. It is saved by a password. Your social account - may be in orkut or myspace or any other social network is protected by a password. Your own Operating system is probably password protected. Even your screen saver is protected by a password. Passwords are virtually everywhere. You simply cannot avoid them.

Since this blog is largely about bypassing these passwords, we shall first know how these passwords work. That is the very basis of all types of hacking and cracking.

So, let's end all the crap talk and jump to the real thing...

Passwords, are basically encrypted and stored in a separate file, which is checked, when authentication mechanism comes into play. The algorithm of encryption varies from system to system. In case of operating systems, it is stored in such a location where only the superior most user has access. In case of *nix platforms, it's the /etc/shadow or the /etc/passwd file. In case of windows NT, it's in the registry, or the SAM database. The passwords are encrypted using a predefined algorithm and then stored in these files. When the user has to be authenticated, the authentication program is run and the user has to enter the password, which is then encrypted to match with the already encrypted password present in the file. If it gives a positive ID the user is authenticated, otherwise, access is denied. In case of passwords in online accounts, the password may not be stored in the local computer. It is stored in the remote computer's password database. So, when you login to your computer, the password database used is (may be not in some cases, if your computer is a terminal to another server machine.) present in the local computer. In case of online accounts, as in the case of mail accounts, the password you enter is checked with the one in the server's database.

The very fact that the password is stored in a file in some storage media, is the vulnerability, that is exploited. All we have to do is get the file, and then crack the password. But again, we need to know the algorithm used to encrypt the password. "How to do that?" is the next question that comes in the mind. Fret not. The Internet has the answer to this. Once we get to know the algorithm, we can directly switch over to cracking the passw0rd. It is taken for granted that the reader knows programming. Even if the reader expertise any specific programming language's knowledge, still it is mandatory to learn C. It is the most powerful language I have come to know about, in the sense that it gives control over every single bit, in any memory location.


Now I shall tell about the various techniques of cracking passwords.

There are basically three different ways of cracking a password:

(1) Dictionary based cracking - Where we try out common passwords.

(2) Brute force cracking - Where we try all possible combinations of letters, numbers, and/or special characters.

(3) Rainbow tables - These are my favorite type of attack. It uses a database of preencrypted passwords, using a certain algorithm. This is used as a substitute to brute force, as brute force is a very tedious process, it takes a lot of time to crack a password. As the maximum amount of time is consumed in encryption of passwords, what we do is, encrypt the passwords, and store them in a database. When we have to crack a password, we have to do a simple lookup in the database. This makes the process real fast. The time consumption, thus becomes a one time affair - in the generation of these databases.

A more elaborate descriptions of these methods, along with sample programs is expected to be provided in a later post. Keep checking in...

So, what is hacking all about???

"Hackers!!!"- The very term would scare people.

It's use has become so very restricted, that people have started taking the term for cyber criminals and computer vandals. But believe me, the very term hacking means "to redefine something to do what it was not made to do...". So, if you configure your FM radio, so that it can receive TV signals as well, it is hacking. If you sneak into someone's privacy, then we term it to be "cracking" not hacking. The very term hacking is clean.

We shall take some examples. All of us must have heard about the famous Operating system Linux. I'll tell you a truth associated with it. It was invented by a fin computer science student, whose name was Linus Torvalds. He was a hacker. Yes, a hacker. Hackers are not evil people. They are people in search of something. That something is knowledge. It is only their thirst for knowledge that makes them do what they do. So, from a broader aspect, even the black hat hackers, whom we call "crackers" aren't really bad people. They help us, the white hats. We are like family. They teach us that we have faults in the programs we have created, and that fault can be misused, and can be potentially harmful to people using the program.

The term hacker was first coined in the MIT(the Massachusetts Institute of Technology), for someone who was a computer expert. But, later on the media has corrupted the term, to designate computer criminals.

I shall now tell about the two major devisions in the world of hackers. There are, basically two types of hackers in this planet. The ones who like to use their knowledge in the positive side, whom we call the The white hats and the others, who use it in the negative side, whom we call The black hats. Always remember - intelligence acts as a double edged sword. The choice, which side you want to take is on to you. I'd say that none is "bad". Because the basic motive in either case is the same - freeing the civilization of ours, from all sorts of threats. To give us a wider view of this place, we are all living in.

This is all I have to say in the intro to hacking section.