Cracking an MD5 Password
A cryptographic hash function is a procedure that takes in a variable amount of data and returns a fixed-size bit string known as the data’ signature or hash value. Among the hash functions the most widely used is by far MD5, but currently it’s days are numbered because of breakthroughs in cracking it.
One approach I found interesting is with the use of Rainbow Tables and through a combination of CPU Power and GPU Power thus doubling the performance. The cracker that I am going to present is from Russian Svarychevski Michail Aleksandrovich and is currently the fastest out to date.
For this presentation I am going to use this hash value ad0234829205b9033196ba818f7a872b.
In order to find the initial value or a collision we must first supply the -h parameter (hash parameter) and then the character set -c. 0 – digits, a – small characters, A – capitals, ~ special symbols. Let’s say that we know the charset as being -c 0a.
And that’s it just press enter and wait for the result, additionally we can supply the -min_len parameter in our case this being 5, but it’s not truly needed. After a few seconds we can see the result.
In a matter of seconds it found the result, take care not to include the last character it seems to be a random one that has no significant value, and so our password is “test2″.
Also please note that it is improper to call this method decrypt or this program hash decryptor since a hash is a non-reversible function and cannot be decrypted.
Notice: For passwords larger than 7 – 8 characters the time it takes to crack it grows exponentially depending on the length.
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Try John The Ripper, you can see the code and compile it yourself, but it does require half-a-brain and some programming knowledge in order to use it.
While I respect your view, I edited your comment because it contained vulgarity. We definitely have separate views, and I tried in this post to admire the work of the Russian which created the crack because of its speed, compared with other commercial crackers.
In this article I presented a solution to specifically crack the md5 password, which both are capable to do, but mine is specifically targeted for this purpose, whereas John The Ripper can crack multiple types of encrypted / hashed passwords.