Elijah Hursey & Austin Keener Academy of Science Summer Bridge 2013 Password Cracking Elijah Hursey & Austin Keener Academy of Science Summer Bridge 2013
Contents: Encryption Brute Force Rainbow Tables Dictionary Cracking
Encryption: Passwords are stored as ‘hash’ Hash is an encrypted version of your password MD5 and SHA are popular but vulnerable B-crypt much stronger encryption Protection depends on encryption software as well as your individual password
Brute Force: Every possible combination of letters, symbols, and numbers Effective but with longer passwords may take a very long time Process is accelerated with better hardware. Can also be simplified with the use of rainbow tables
Dictionary Cracking: Modified form of Brute force Uses words instead of random combinations These attacks can be countered by using numbers and symbols
Rainbow Tables: Does not store all possible combinations Combinations stored in chains Only beginning and end of chain are stored This method of storage allows for faster cracking speeds without needing to have terabytes of storage space to store every possible combination
Acknowledgements: Dr. Alexander D. Schwab Dr. Jennifer Burris Mr. David Sitar Dr. Cindy Norris Dr. Rahman Tashakkori Appalachian State University Academy of Science Summer Bridge Program National Science Foundation
References: "Mieux coder." Mieux coder RSS. 27 July 2013 <http://www.mieuxcoder.com/2008/01/02/rainbow-tables/>. "OPHCRACK (the time-memory-trade-off-cracker)." Ophcrack. 27 July 2013 <http://lasecwww.epfl.ch/~oechslin/projects/ophcrack/>.