We live in the digital era, and in the world of technology, everything is password protected. There are many ways to crack the password such as social engineering, try and error method, etc. but the three only two most successful methods of password cracking i.e. Dictionary attack and Brute force. Both of them has there perks and disadvantages. And in today’s article, we will focus on dictionary attack as it comes handy and is the best method to crack a password.

Table of Content

• Dictionary attack
• Crunch
• Cewl
• Cupp
• Pydictor
• Dymerge

Dictionary attack: Dictionary attack is an attempted entry in a digital system which uses a precompiled list of possible passwords rather entering them one at a time. Basically, it an evolved and advanced form of trial and error as it brings result fast and is efficient. I am sure that there are many ways for a dictionary attack but I am going to give you five best ones.

Crunch

The first is Crunch. The best thing about crunch is you can use it both offline and online. It generates wordlist according to your requirements. You can give the maximum and minimum length of the password and also provide it with a character-set which you want it to use while creating your dictionary. And then crunch will create your dictionary while keeping your requirements at its priority. Hence, a dictionary will be created with all the possible combinations.

Now let’s see how to use it. Observe its syntax first:

crunch <min> <max> <character-set> -t <pattern> -o <path>

crunch – crunch is the keyword which notifies the system to use this tool.

<min> – here you specify the minimum length characters you want.

<max> – here you specify the maximum length of characters.

<character-set> – here you specify the characters you want it to use while creating the dictionary.

-t <pattern>- this is optional but here you can specify the pattern in with you want your character-set to be.

-o <path> – here you give the path where you want your dictionary file to be saved.

For instance, open the terminal of kali and type:

crunch 3 4 ignite –o /root/Desktop/dict.txt

Now the above command will create a dictionary with the possible combinations from the word ignite which will length from 3 to 4 characters. The file will be saved in text form on the Desktop. Similar is shown in the image below:

Let’s now read the dict.txt file and for that type:

cat dict.txt

All the words will be displayed in the following manner:

For more detail read the full article from here: https://www.hackingarticles.in/comprehensive-guide-to-crunch-tool/

Cewl

Next way is by using Cewl. Now Cewl works somewhat like John The Ripper and is written in ruby. When targeting people of the corporate sector or the business world; this is the tool for you. As you all know it is in the human psyche to use the words significant to them and which occur in their day to day life. Cewl works on the URL you provide it. It will take that URL and crawl its way to the depth of 2 links (by default, you can increase or decrease the depth too) and will search every word which has the possibility of being a password. With all these words it will generate a word list for you to use as your dictionary in a dictionary attack. Let’s observe it syntax:

• cewl <url> -d<depth> -w<path>
• Cewl – indicated the tool which is being used
• <url> – here give the URL that you want to use as a foundation of your dictionary.
• -d<depth> – here, give the number of links you want it to go through while creating your dictionary.
• -w<path> – here, give the path where you want to store all the possible passwords.
• For example in the terminal of kali type :

cewl www.ignitetechnologies.in -d 2 -w /root/Desktop/dict.txt

The above command will create a dictionary file using the word from the URL.

Let’s look the dictionary file it just created and for that type:

cat dict.txt

 All the words will be displayed in the following manner:

For more detail read the full article from here: https://www.hackingarticles.in/comprehensive-guide-on-cewl-tool/

Cupp

Our next way is using a third party tool i.e. cup. Previous tools were pre-installed but you will have to install this one on your own. To install it please type:

git clone https://github.com/Mebus/cupp.git

CUPP is developed in python and makes very personalized tool when it comes to password cracking. Studies show that while setting up the password, humans show a similar pattern such as they tend to make password personalize by adding their date of birth, anniversary date, pet’s name, etc. and CUPP focuses on this weakness and helps to crack password effectively. Before creating a wordlist, it will ask you the required information about your target. And will create the wordlist as per the information. Now, let’s study how it works set-by-step. Initiate cupp first by typing:

./cupp.py -i

Once initiated it will ask you the information about your target as shown in the image:

Give the required information and your wordlist will be generated as follows:

For more detail read the full article from here: https://www.hackingarticles.in/comprehensive-guide-on-cupp-a-wordlist-generating-tool/

Pydictor

Next up tool is Pydictor. This is a special tool as it is the only tool that creates the wordlist both in normal words and in base64 encryption. So if someone is smart enough to keep a safe password this tool will help you with it. Pydictor is written in python. There is two method to crack the password using this tool one creates a normal wordlist the other creates wordlist in base64 form. We will try both methods. But first things first, this is a third party tool so we will have to install it and for it please type :

git clone https://github.com/LandGrey/pydictor.git

Once the tool is installed and ready to use, give it instructions on bases of what you want it to generate the wordlist using. Understand the syntax first:

./pydictor.py –len <min> <max> -base d –o <path>

• ./pydictor.py – initiates the tool
• –len – indicates the length of characters
• <min> – here, give the minimum length of characters
• <max> – here, give a maximum length of characters
• -o – indicates the path
• <path> – here, give the path where you want your wordlist to be saved

Let’s give the command to generate the wordlist now:

./pydictor.py --len 5 5 --base d –o /root/Desktop/dict.txt

Let’s read the file created to have a look at the words that it has generated. And for that type:

cat dict.txt/BASE_5_5_d_071743.txt

The other method using a similar tool gives us a password in base64 encoding. Let’s study the syntax first:

./pydictor.py –len <min> <max> -base d --encode <encoding type> –o <path>

• ./pydictor.py – initiates the tool
• –len – indicates the length of characters
• <min> – here, give the minimum length of characters
• <max> – here, give a maximum length of characters
• –encode – indicated the type of encryption/encoding
• <encoding type> – here, give the type of encoding you want
• -o – indicates the path
• <path> – here, give the path where you want your wordlist to be saved

Let’s give the command to generate wordlist:

./pydictor.py --len 5 5 -base d --encode b64 –o /root/Desktop/dict.txt

The above command will generate wordlist in base64 let’s have a look at it:

cat dict.txt/BASE_5_5_d_070433.txt

For more detail read the full article from here: https://www.hackingarticles.in/comprehensive-guide-on-pydictor-a-wordlist-generating-tool/

Dymerge

The last and next up tool is Dymerge. Dymerge is an interesting and powerful tool made in python. Basically what dymerge does is takes the previously made multiple dictionaries and merges them into a single one, so all the dictionaries can you use in one go while you sit back and relax. You can merge any number of dictionaries either default ones or custom made. This is again a third party tool so let’s install it first:

git clone https://github.com/k4m4/dymerge.git

Let’s understand its syntax:

python dymerge.py <path> <path> -s –o <path>

• Python dymerge.py à initiates the tool
• <path> – here, give the path of the first dictionary you want to merge
• <path> – here, give the path of the second dictionary you want to merge
• -o – indicates the path where the resulted wordlist will be saved
• <path> – here, give the path where the final wordlist list will be saved

Now that we have understood the syntax let’s try the command:

python dymerge.py /root/Desktop/digit.txt /root/Desktop/words.txt –s –o /root/Desktop/dict.txt

Here, I have taken two wordlists (you can take more also), where one contains numbers and other contains alphabets and merges them into one so you can use multiple dictionaries at the same time.

Let’s have a look at the dictionary that it has created:

cat dict-1.txt

For more detail read the full article from here:https://www.hackingarticles.in/comprehensive-guide-on-the-dymerge/ 

These are the five powerful and efficient ways to password cracking. Enjoy and explore these fo0r both hacking and recovering passwords. Have fun!

Author: Yashika Dhir is a passionate Researcher and Technical Writer at Hacking Articles. She is a hacking enthusiast. contact here