HOW TO CRACK WINDOWS PASSWORDS WITH OPHCRACK?

Ophcrack is one of the Windows password cracker, whose working is based on rainbow tables (precomputed table for reversing cryptographic hash functions). Ophcrack is free and open source software which is available under GPL license.

Ophcrack  cracks LM hashes and NT hashes. It also cracks NTLM hashes, which is necessary when the password is longer than 14 characters. It runs on multiple platforms and has graphical user interface. Ophcrack is supported by Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7.

How to crack passwords by Ophcrack?:

Cracking password by Ophcrack involves two steps. They are

1. Creating Bootable USB Ophcrack.
2. Cracking password by using Ophcrack

1. Creating Bootable USB Ophcrack:

1. Go to Ophcrack website and download "OphcrackLiveCD".
2. Then burn the downloaded ISO file to a CD/DVD using any one image burning software.

2. Cracking password by using Ophcrack:

1. Change the boot settings of your computer to boot from a disc drive by entering into BIOS settings.
2. Insert Ophcrack CD into the drive.
3. Ophcrack initiates itself by displaying logo screen, then press enter button.
4. In a window you can see all the user accounts available in that computer. From them select the required account for which the password is to be cracked.
5. Then click launch or Crack button in the window.
6. Process of cracking starts and if the Ophcrack gets your password then it is displayed in "NT pwd" column. 

That is the end of cracking process. You can use displayed password to login to the system. And if you need you can change it.

Posted in: HOW-TO`s, SECURITY-TIPS