CEH-Assessments-Week-07

🧪 CEH v13 – Week 07: System Hacking Techniques & Password Cracking with John the Ripper

This week's focus was on understanding core system hacking techniques and applying John the Ripper (JtR) to crack SHA-256 hashed passwords using different modes.

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🔐 Part 1: Conceptual Summary

🔸 Techniques for System Hacking:

Technique	Description
Password Cracking	Gaining unauthorized access by recovering passwords via brute force, dictionary attacks, or rainbow tables.
Vulnerability Exploitation	Exploiting system/software flaws using automated tools to gain control or escalate privileges.
Payload Usage	Injecting code (e.g., Meterpreter) to establish backdoors or manipulate systems post-exploit.

🔸 Tools & Their Specializations:

Tool	Focus Area	Cracking Methods
John the Ripper	Offline hash cracking	Brute force, dictionary, rule-based
Hydra	Network login brute-forcing	Protocol-based (SSH, FTP, HTTP, etc.)
Hashcat	GPU-accelerated hash cracking	Brute force, hybrid, dictionary attacks

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💻 Part 2: Practical Lab – John the Ripper (JtR)

🔹 Mode A: Single Crack Mode

• Uses known user information for intelligent guesses.

# Generate SHA-256 of password
echo -n 'Topgun' | sha256sum

# Save username:hash to file
echo -n 'topgun:4558ce5abe3b1e70bbadc3b95f2ff84f54d0a5c30fb524ceebfd401f8233fda7' > simple.txt

# Run JtR
john --single --format=raw-sha256 simple.txt

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🔹 Mode B: Wordlist Mode

• Tests against common passwords from a wordlist like rockyou.txt.

# Generate hash
echo -n 'password1234' | sha256sum

# Save to file
echo user01:b9c950640e1b3740e98acb93e669c65766f6670dd1609ba91ff41052ba48c6f3 >> crack.txt

# Run JtR with wordlist (unzip rockyou.txt if needed)
john --wordlist=/usr/share/wordlists/rockyou.txt --format=raw-sha256 crack.txt

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🔹 Mode C: Incremental Mode

• Performs full brute-force on all character combinations.

# Generate hash
echo -n 'passw0rd' | sha256sum

# Save to file
echo user02:8f0e2f76e22b43e2855189877e7dc1e1e7d98c226c95db247cd1d547928334a9 >> inc.txt

# Run JtR incrementally
john --incremental --format=raw-sha256 inc.txt

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📌 Key Takeaways

• John the Ripper supports versatile modes for password cracking.
• Understanding hash algorithms (like SHA-256) is key to offline attacks.
• Each attack mode targets different use cases—single mode for targeted attacks, wordlist for real-world guesses, and incremental for full brute-force.

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📂 Resources

All lab screenshots, hash outputs, and result logs are available in this folder:
📁 CEH-Assessments-Week-07/screenshots

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⚠️ Disclaimer

This project is created strictly for educational purposes under the CEH v13 training curriculum.
All usernames, passwords, and targets used are simulated or lab-based.
Do not apply these techniques on unauthorized systems.