[john-users] Beat JTR to the punch! :)

[Eric Oyen]

Well everyone, I beat JTR to the punch (by several million years I might add). That password I was so hot and heavy to recover, I did, from inside my head. It was 13 characters. In fact, this was the user account password on my Mac: H4mr4d!0NLZZ7

Btw, I remembered it about 20 minutes ago and typed it in via the login screen on my MacBook Lion OS X system. The user account popped right up like I had never left.

SO, this proves a couple of things:
1. I need a good password cracking machine to do this on (A Mac mini is nowhere near sufficient enough)
2. I still have a good memory, even if it takes me 3 or more months to recover 1 item of data buried in the mass of near total recall that I have.

Anyway, I will continue to use JTR for security testing of any new passwords I might generate for various websites just to see how easy (or hard) it would be to break them.

Anyway, the interesting bit was that even the other program (DaveGrohl) couldn’t break this, even when given most of the letters, numbers and symbols provided in a custom character list. SMH.

So, what do you guys think of the level of complexity of the given password? And no, the only place it got used was on my Mac and nowhere else.

-Eric

[Solar Designer]

Hi Eric,

I'm happy to hear you managed to recall that password. For others
reading this, it was previously discussed in these threads:

https://www.openwall.com/lists/john-users/2018/05/01/3
https://www.openwall.com/lists/john-users/2018/05/03/4

Post by Eric Oyen
It was 13 characters. In fact, this was the user account password on my Mac: H4mr4d!0NLZZ7

Well, this doesn't exactly match the pattern you recalled before, but
it's very close. The first mask I suggested in the May 3 posting was:

--mask='[Hh][aA4][mM]r[aA4][dD][iI!][oO0][nNzZ][7L][nNzZ][nNzZ][tT]'

It misses your password because it only tries "t" and "T" for the last
character, not "7". Adding "7" in there hits your password instantly:

$ ./john --mask='[Hh][aA4][mM]r[aA4][dD][iI!][oO0][nNzZ][7L][nNzZ][nNzZ][tT7]' --stdout | fgrep -n 'H4mr4d!0NLZZ7'
Press 'q' or Ctrl-C to abort, almost any other key for status
247493:H4mr4d!0NLZZ7
248832p 0:00:00:00 100.00% (2018-10-15 19:05) 3554Kp/s h4Mr4D!0ZLZZ7

And so does this two-step approach with the originally posted mask:

$ ./john --mask='[Hh][aA4][mM]r[aA4][dD][iI!][oO0][nNzZ][7L][nNzZ][nNzZ][tT]' --stdout > w
Press 'q' or Ctrl-C to abort, almost any other key for status
165888p 0:00:00:00 100.00% (2018-10-15 19:06) 2073Kp/s h4Mr4D!0ZLZZT

$ ./john -w=w --external=leet --stdout | fgrep -n 'H4mr4d!0NLZZ7'
Press 'q' or Ctrl-C to abort, almost any other key for status
919103:H4mr4d!0NLZZ7
919318:H4mr4d!0NLZZ7
919970:H4mr4d!0NLZZ7
920039:H4mr4d!0NLZZ7
922087:H4mr4d!0NLZZ7
922158:H4mr4d!0NLZZ7
922362:H4mr4d!0NLZZ7
922383:H4mr4d!0NLZZ7
924617:H4mr4d!0NLZZ7
924724:H4mr4d!0NLZZ7
925040:H4mr4d!0NLZZ7
925073:H4mr4d!0NLZZ7
926037:H4mr4d!0NLZZ7
926072:H4mr4d!0NLZZ7
926164:H4mr4d!0NLZZ7
926173:H4mr4d!0NLZZ7
1370112p 0:00:00:00 100.00% (2018-10-15 19:09) 1670Kp/s ***@Mr4D!0ZLZZT

This also hits your password promptly, albeit not instantly:

$ ./john -w=w --rules=oi --stdout | fgrep -n 'H4mr4d!0NLZZ7'
Press 'q' or Ctrl-C to abort, almost any other key for status
185129669:H4mr4d!0NLZZ7
185212613:H4mr4d!0NLZZ7
260223068p 0:00:00:19 0.04% (ETA: 08:24:07) 13420Kp/s haMrAdI0z7NNt
Session aborted

As you can see, some of these approaches produce duplicates. When
attacking a slow hash we'd try to avoid that e.g. by using JtR's
"unique" program, but for a fast hash this is fine.

Post by Eric Oyen
1. I need a good password cracking machine to do this on (A Mac mini is nowhere near sufficient enough)

No, this doesn't prove that. If anything, it proves that it's very
important to focus the attacks, but not focus them too much.

Post by Eric Oyen
2. I still have a good memory, even if it takes me 3 or more months to recover 1 item of data buried in the mass of near total recall that I have.

Sure.

Post by Eric Oyen
So, what do you guys think of the level of complexity of the given password?

As always, what level of complexity is appropriate varies by use case
and threat model, and whether/how password complexity affects cracking
depends on what information the attacker has.

Alexander

[Eric Oyen]

Alexander,
Well, I say my Mac mini isn’t exactly up to snuff here. It’s only capable of just under 1k hashes per second. :( so, even when properly focused, it would have taken rather some time (considerably less than the 13 million years called for in the time estimate) but still
.

And yes, I will keep that mask on hand for future reference. :)

-Eric

Post by Solar Designer
Hi Eric,
I'm happy to hear you managed to recall that password. For others
https://www.openwall.com/lists/john-users/2018/05/01/3
https://www.openwall.com/lists/john-users/2018/05/03/4

Post by Eric Oyen
It was 13 characters. In fact, this was the user account password on my Mac: H4mr4d!0NLZZ7

Well, this doesn't exactly match the pattern you recalled before, but
--mask='[Hh][aA4][mM]r[aA4][dD][iI!][oO0][nNzZ][7L][nNzZ][nNzZ][tT]'
It misses your password because it only tries "t" and "T" for the last
$ ./john --mask='[Hh][aA4][mM]r[aA4][dD][iI!][oO0][nNzZ][7L][nNzZ][nNzZ][tT7]' --stdout | fgrep -n 'H4mr4d!0NLZZ7'
Press 'q' or Ctrl-C to abort, almost any other key for status
247493:H4mr4d!0NLZZ7
248832p 0:00:00:00 100.00% (2018-10-15 19:05) 3554Kp/s h4Mr4D!0ZLZZ7
$ ./john --mask='[Hh][aA4][mM]r[aA4][dD][iI!][oO0][nNzZ][7L][nNzZ][nNzZ][tT]' --stdout > w
Press 'q' or Ctrl-C to abort, almost any other key for status
165888p 0:00:00:00 100.00% (2018-10-15 19:06) 2073Kp/s h4Mr4D!0ZLZZT
$ ./john -w=w --external=leet --stdout | fgrep -n 'H4mr4d!0NLZZ7'
Press 'q' or Ctrl-C to abort, almost any other key for status
919103:H4mr4d!0NLZZ7
919318:H4mr4d!0NLZZ7
919970:H4mr4d!0NLZZ7
920039:H4mr4d!0NLZZ7
922087:H4mr4d!0NLZZ7
922158:H4mr4d!0NLZZ7
922362:H4mr4d!0NLZZ7
922383:H4mr4d!0NLZZ7
924617:H4mr4d!0NLZZ7
924724:H4mr4d!0NLZZ7
925040:H4mr4d!0NLZZ7
925073:H4mr4d!0NLZZ7
926037:H4mr4d!0NLZZ7
926072:H4mr4d!0NLZZ7
926164:H4mr4d!0NLZZ7
926173:H4mr4d!0NLZZ7
$ ./john -w=w --rules=oi --stdout | fgrep -n 'H4mr4d!0NLZZ7'
Press 'q' or Ctrl-C to abort, almost any other key for status
185129669:H4mr4d!0NLZZ7
185212613:H4mr4d!0NLZZ7
260223068p 0:00:00:19 0.04% (ETA: 08:24:07) 13420Kp/s haMrAdI0z7NNt
Session aborted
As you can see, some of these approaches produce duplicates. When
attacking a slow hash we'd try to avoid that e.g. by using JtR's
"unique" program, but for a fast hash this is fine.

Post by Eric Oyen
1. I need a good password cracking machine to do this on (A Mac mini is nowhere near sufficient enough)

No, this doesn't prove that. If anything, it proves that it's very
important to focus the attacks, but not focus them too much.

Post by Eric Oyen
2. I still have a good memory, even if it takes me 3 or more months to recover 1 item of data buried in the mass of near total recall that I have.

Sure.

Post by Eric Oyen
So, what do you guys think of the level of complexity of the given password?

As always, what level of complexity is appropriate varies by use case
and threat model, and whether/how password complexity affects cracking
depends on what information the attacker has.
Alexander