[john-users] partially forgotten kdbx pw / help recover partially known pw

[Александр Наумов]

Hello,

I'd like to ask for some help.
I used KeePass2 for some period of time, but now I can't remember my pw.

However, I know what it might contain.

The first part is known to me, its like ABC12 (3 capital letters and 2 numbers). I know this part.
Then there is one or two quite simple words like 'work', 'home', 'best', 'now' etc. No numbers are placed here, no capital letters.
The max length of the whole password is between 10 and 20 characters.
Generally it looks like ABC12bestwork OR ABC12worknow etc.
I generated the hash for the kdbx file and wanted to try this:
john --session=01 --mask=ABC12\u\u\u\u\u\u\u\u\u\u\ hashfile
and then create several (10) sessions for each. 
The mask command didn't work for me, however there should be another way for such composite password.

Would you please help me recover my password. 

Best regards and many thanks in advance.

-- 
Alexander

[Solar Designer]

Hi,

Post by Александр Наумов
The first part is known to me, its like ABC12 (3 capital letters and 2 numbers). I know this part.
Then there is one or two quite simple words like 'work', 'home', 'best', 'now' etc. No numbers are placed here, no capital letters.
The max length of the whole password is between 10 and 20 characters.
Generally it looks like ABC12bestwork OR ABC12worknow etc.
I generated the hash for the kdbx file

Great.

You can obtain a common English words list e.g. from one of these URLs:

https://www.ef.edu/english-resources/english-vocabulary/top-100-words/
https://www.ef.edu/english-resources/english-vocabulary/top-1000-words/
https://www.ef.edu/english-resources/english-vocabulary/top-3000-words/
https://github.com/first20hours/google-10000-english/blob/master/google-10000-english.txt

You'll need to copy-paste just the list of words to a text file, or in
the case of the GitHub URL you can click on "Raw".

You can also use lower.gz from:

http://download.openwall.net/pub/wordlists/languages/English/1-tiny/

If so, "gzip -d" it first. But it's probably unnecessarily long, and
isn't as focused on the top words as the above lists are.

Then you can use a combination of PRINCE and mask modes like this:

./john --prince=top-1000-words.txt --prince-elem-cnt-min=2 --prince-elem-cnt-max=2 --mask='ABC12?w' --min-length=10 --max-length=20 hashfile

This may produce a handful of duplicates, which you can filter out if
you like (makes sense if each guess takes a long time to test):

./john --prince=top-1000-words.txt --prince-elem-cnt-min=2 --prince-elem-cnt-max=2 --mask='ABC12?w' --min-length=10 --max-length=20 --stdout | ./unique to-test.txt
./john -w=to-test.txt hashfile

where "unique" is a symlink or program located in JtR's run directory.

Alternatively, the old-fashioned way to do it (prior to us getting
PRINCE, kindly contributed by atom of Hashcat) was to use Perl scripts
such as those I attached here, e.g.:

./double.pl top-1000-words.txt > top1000x2.txt

Similarly to the above, you can optionally filter out the few duplicates
that might appear in the combined list with:

rm top1000x2.txt
./double.pl top-1000-words.txt | ./unique top1000x2.txt

Then use JtR e.g. like this:

./john -w=top1000x2.txt --mask='ABC12?w' hashfile

With the mix.pl script, you can use two different input lists e.g. if
you know that one of the words is more common than the other.

The scripts also let you specify a word separator easily (e.g., there's
a commented-out line for separating the two words with a space).

Post by Александр Наумов
john --session=01 --mask=ABC12\u\u\u\u\u\u\u\u\u\u\ hashfile
and then create several (10) sessions for each.
The mask command didn't work for me

This mask is wrong, and even if you corrected it e.g. to:

./john --mask='ABC12?l' --min-length=10 --max-length=20 hashfile

it'd take far too long to complete unless your password's length happens
to be close to the minimum. Feel free to give this a try while you're
preparing the wordlist, though - you might get lucky.

There's no need to run a session per length - the mask automatically
expands to higher lengths as specified by the options.

Just to provide yet another option (more efficient than mask mode alone,
but less efficient than a focused wordlist), you can combine incremental
and mask modes:

./john --incremental=lower --mask='ABC12?w' --min-length=10 --max-length=20 hashfile

Unlike mask mode alone, this will consider character triplet
frequencies, but unlike the wordlist it won't focus on whole words.

If you're unsure the minimum length is 10, just omit "--min-length=10"
in all of these commands. This is probably a good idea since testing of
shorter passwords is relatively quick anyway.

I hope this helps.

Alexander

[Alexander]

Hi Alexander,

first of all thank you for your great help, I reviewed the email and I can see that the solution offered by you would (should anyway) definitely help.

However, I started it with --prince and it said 'unknown option=1000.txt'
I installed the version 1.8.0 (Linux Mint) using the command 'make clean generic'.
Also, it can't find the '-mask':
Unknown option: "--mask=ABC12?w" What I did wrong here?..

The last question is that you suggested in

./john -w=top1000x2.txt --mask='ABC12?w' hashfile

and similar examples where  'ABC12?w' ends with 'w'.

Does this 'w' stands for word lists (to tell the JtR that the next part of pw comes from words list) or is this a part of the first known password's part?
I assume kind of yes (vote for syntax) since it comes after '?' and might be a part of the command syntax.

Generally, as you have noticed, it can be there after 'ABC12' any other letter like 'b', 'c' or whatever. 
Anyway, I'd try both variants since I looks like a good solution to me.

Thanks again 

Regards,
Alexander

Post by Solar Designer
Hi,

Post by Александр Наумов
The first part is known to me, its like ABC12 (3 capital letters and 2 numbers). I know this part.
Then there is one or two quite simple words like 'work', 'home', 'best', 'now' etc. No numbers are placed here, no capital letters.
The max length of the whole password is between 10 and 20 characters.
Generally it looks like ABC12bestwork OR ABC12worknow etc.
I generated the hash for the kdbx file

Great.
https://www.ef.edu/english-resources/english-vocabulary/top-100-words/
https://www.ef.edu/english-resources/english-vocabulary/top-1000-words/
https://www.ef.edu/english-resources/english-vocabulary/top-3000-words/
https://github.com/first20hours/google-10000-english/blob/master/google-10000-english.txt
You'll need to copy-paste just the list of words to a text file, or in
the case of the GitHub URL you can click on "Raw".
http://download.openwall.net/pub/wordlists/languages/English/1-tiny/
If so, "gzip -d" it first. But it's probably unnecessarily long, and
isn't as focused on the top words as the above lists are.
./john --prince=top-1000-words.txt --prince-elem-cnt-min=2 --prince-elem-cnt-max=2 --mask='ABC12?w' --min-length=10 --max-length=20 hashfile
This may produce a handful of duplicates, which you can filter out if
./john --prince=top-1000-words.txt --prince-elem-cnt-min=2 --prince-elem-cnt-max=2 --mask='ABC12?w' --min-length=10 --max-length=20 --stdout | ./unique to-test.txt
./john -w=to-test.txt hashfile
where "unique" is a symlink or program located in JtR's run directory.
Alternatively, the old-fashioned way to do it (prior to us getting
PRINCE, kindly contributed by atom of Hashcat) was to use Perl scripts
./double.pl top-1000-words.txt > top1000x2.txt
Similarly to the above, you can optionally filter out the few duplicates
rm top1000x2.txt
./double.pl top-1000-words.txt | ./unique top1000x2.txt
./john -w=top1000x2.txt --mask='ABC12?w' hashfile
With the mix.pl script, you can use two different input lists e.g. if
you know that one of the words is more common than the other.
The scripts also let you specify a word separator easily (e.g., there's
a commented-out line for separating the two words with a space).

Post by Александр Наумов
john --session=01 --mask=ABC12\u\u\u\u\u\u\u\u\u\u\ hashfile
and then create several (10) sessions for each.
The mask command didn't work for me

./john --mask='ABC12?l' --min-length=10 --max-length=20 hashfile
it'd take far too long to complete unless your password's length happens
to be close to the minimum. Feel free to give this a try while you're
preparing the wordlist, though - you might get lucky.
There's no need to run a session per length - the mask automatically
expands to higher lengths as specified by the options.
Just to provide yet another option (more efficient than mask mode alone,
but less efficient than a focused wordlist), you can combine incremental
./john --incremental=lower --mask='ABC12?w' --min-length=10 --max-length=20 hashfile
Unlike mask mode alone, this will consider character triplet
frequencies, but unlike the wordlist it won't focus on whole words.
If you're unsure the minimum length is 10, just omit "--min-length=10"
in all of these commands. This is probably a good idea since testing of
shorter passwords is relatively quick anyway.
I hope this helps.
Alexander

[Solar Designer]

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[Alexander]

Great!!

DONE!!

I did spend more time on installing the whole stuff from the instructions than the JtR to crack my pw.. )))
I was remembering this 'simple' pw for almost 1 months and tried over 100 variations with no luck before!

Thank you very much!

p.s. now its time to create a bit more strong pw ;)

Post by Solar Designer

Post by Alexander
I installed the version 1.8.0 (Linux Mint) using the command 'make clean generic'.

You need a jumbo version of JtR, preferably the latest bleeding-jumbo
https://github.com/magnumripper/JohnTheRipper/archive/bleeding-jumbo.tar.gz

Post by Alexander
./john -w=top1000x2.txt --mask='ABC12?w' hashfile
and similar examples where 'ABC12?w' ends with 'w'.
Does this 'w' stands for word lists (to tell the JtR that the next part of pw comes from words list)

Yes. It can also refer to whatever "word" comes from whatever other
cracking mode (like PRINCE or incremental) you use along with mask.
Alexander