Password Attacks & Cracking

Summary

Techniques for obtaining or bypassing passwords — brute force, dictionary attacks, and cracking captured password hashes with tools like Hashcat, exploiting weak password policies from Phase 4.

• 1Practice cracking a sample password hash using Hashcat or John the Ripper on a practice lab.
• 2Learn why strong hashing algorithms (bcrypt, Argon2) dramatically slow down cracking attempts.
• 3Understand why password reuse across sites makes credential stuffing attacks so effective.