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The purpose of password cracking might be to help a user recover a forgotten password (due to the fact that installing an entirely new password would involve System Administration privileges), to gain unauthorized access to a system, or to act as a preventive measure whereby system administrators check for easily crackable passwords. On a file ...
The first public release of Crack was version 2.7a, which was posted to the Usenet newsgroups alt.sources and alt.security on 15 July 1991. Crack v3.2a+fcrypt, posted to comp.sources.misc on 23 August 1991, introduced an optimised version of the Unix crypt() function but was still only really a faster version of what was already available in other packages.
The Worst Passwords List is an annual list of the 25 most common passwords from each year as produced by internet security firm SplashData. [4] Since 2011, the firm has published the list based on data examined from millions of passwords leaked in data breaches, mostly in North America and Western Europe, over each year.
One of the modes John can use is the dictionary attack. [6] It takes text string samples (usually from a file, called a wordlist, containing words found in a dictionary or real passwords cracked before), encrypting it in the same format as the password being examined (including both the encryption algorithm and key), and comparing the output to the encrypted string.
A hacker can use or generate files like this, which may be readily compiled from breaches of sites such as Ashley Madison. Usually, passwords are not tried one-by-one against a system's secure server online; instead, a hacker might manage to gain access to a shadowed password file protected by a one-way encryption algorithm.
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A white hat (or a white-hat hacker, a whitehat) is an ethical security hacker. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] Ethical hacking is a term meant to imply a broader category than just penetration testing. [ 3 ] [ 4 ] Under the owner's consent, white-hat hackers aim to identify any vulnerabilities or security issues the current system has. [ 5 ]