Brute Forcing is simply testing a list of passwords to a list of usernames and hopefully you will have matched a username and password combination that is correct.

There are many disadvantages in using this method to hack, such as time (you need to test thousands if not millions of combination) and most websites now have features that limit the number of incorrect guesses at one’s password, or make a human verification field mandatory when logging in. Let’s get started.

What You Will Need:

1) Download Brutus:
2) Download Password List:
3) You will need a proxy or VPN that changes your IP address for all programs, not just your web browser. I would suggest using CyberGhost VPN or Hot Spot Shield. They are pretty easy to use and are well documented so if you need help using them, please search or go to their websites.
4) [Optional] A list of usernames, but if you are trying to get a specific users password, you can simply create your own text file with the username written within it. This will help reduce the amount of time needed for the program to run (because you only have one user)

Getting Started:

An example of a simple form Login is one as follows (which i just created in HTML as a means to demonstrate such) I am not going to give any real websites just to avoid any conflict. Once you have found a website that looks similar to that, test it a few times to makes sure it doesn’t limit how many times you type in an incorrect password. Once you have verified that it may be vulnerable to Brute Forcing, lets get started.

Step One: Start Brutus

Leave the target field alone for the moment and where it says type choose HTTP (Form) You will see that below it a new option has appeared called “Modify Sequence.” Press this.

Step Two: Specifying Your Target

Find the URL that links directly to the login page of the website. For example: http://www.website.com/login; Insert that URL into the Target Field. After doing so press learn from settings. You will now see something similar to the following screen:

As you see, On the left hand side it states “Field Name” that gives options such as username and password. Select the Username under the Field Name list and press the button that says Username. Do the same with the password and hit password. This lets Brutus now where to input its list. Press accept and it will return you to your previous screen. If, when you were testing you got a message that says, “Incorrect login” or something similar, copy it and paste it under the HTML Response boxes. Press Okay when your complete. We need to do one more thing before we start.

Step Three: Setting the Word lists

The Next step is fairly simple. Go to the option that says “User File” and select the text file that contains the usernames you would like to Brute Force. The beside under “Pass File” specify your password list. Before you hit Start make sure all the optional variables are set to your satisfaction (the default are usually fine); start your proxy, make sure your IP address is masked than hit Start. Allow the program to run for as long as you want or until it has completed and hopefully you have gotten some passwords!

Now you know how to brute force using Brutus. There are more popular ones as mentioned in this article and i have listed them for you with the download links. Feel free to have a look and also remember i’m not responsible for any of your actions as this is only for educational purposes.

Top Brute Forcing software

1. RainbowCrack

RainbowCrack is a hash cracker tool that uses a large-scale time-memory trade off process for faster password cracking than traditional brute force tools. Time-memory trade off is a computational process in which all plain text and hash pairs are calculated by using a selected hash algorithm. After computation, results are stored in the rainbow table. This process is very time consuming. But, once the table is ready, it can crack a password must faster than brute force tools.

You also do not need to generate rainbow tablets by yourselves. Developers of RainbowCrack have also generated LM rainbow tables, NTLM rainbow tables, MD5 rainbow tables and Sha1 rainbow tables. Like RainbowCrack, these tables are also available for free. You can download these tables and use for your password cracking processes.

Download Rainbow tables here: http://project-rainbowcrack.com/table.htm

A few paid rainbow tables are also available, which you can buy from here: http://project-rainbowcrack.com/buy.php

This tool is available for both Windows and Linux systems.

Download Rainbow crack here: http://project-rainbowcrack.com/

2. Wfuzz

Wfuzz is another web application password cracking tool that tries to crack passwords with brute forcing. It can also be used to find hidden resources like directories, servlets and scripts. This tool can also identify different kind of injections including SQL Injection, XSS Injection, LDAP Injection, etc in Web applications.

Key features of Wfuzz password cracking tool:

• Capability of injection via multiple points with multiple dictionary
• Output in colored HTML
• Post, headers and authentication data brute forcing
• Proxy and SOCK Support, Multiple Proxy Support
• Multi Threading
• Brute force HTTP Password
• POST and GET Brute forcing
• Time delay between requests
• Cookies fuzzing

3. Cain and Abel

Cain and Abel is a well-known password cracking tool that is capable of handling a variety of tasks. The most notable thing is that the tool is only available for Windows platforms. It can work as sniffer in the network, cracking encrypted passwords using the dictionary attack, recording VoIP conversations, brute force attacks, cryptanalysis attacks, revealing password boxes, uncovering cached passwords, decoding scrambled passwords, and analyzing routing protocols.

Cain and Abel does not exploit any vulnerability or bugs. It only covers security weakness of protocols to grab the password. This tool was developed for network administrators, security professionals, forensics staff, and penetration testers.

Download here: http://www.oxid.it/ca_um/

4. John the Ripper

John the Ripper is another well-known free open source password cracking tool for Linux, Unix and Mac OS X. A Windows version is also available. This tool can detect weak passwords. A pro version of the tool is also available, which offers better features and native packages for target operating systems. You can also download Openwall GNU/*/Linux that comes with John the Ripper.

Download John the Ripper here: http://www.openwall.com/john/

5. THC Hydra

THC Hydra is a fast network logon password cracking tool. When it is compared with other similar tools, it shows why it is faster. New modules are easy to install in the tool. You can easily add modules and enhance the features. It is available for Windows, Linux, Free BSD, Solaris and OS X. This tool supports various network protocols. Currently it supports Asterisk, AFP, Cisco AAA, Cisco auth, Cisco enable, CVS, Firebird, FTP, HTTP-FORM-GET, HTTP-FORM-POST, HTTP-GET, HTTP-HEAD, HTTP-PROXY, HTTPS-FORM-GET, HTTPS-FORM-POST, HTTPS-GET, HTTPS-HEAD, HTTP-Proxy, ICQ, IMAP, IRC, LDAP, MS-SQL, MYSQL, NCP, NNTP, Oracle Listener, Oracle SID, Oracle, PC-Anywhere, PCNFS, POP3, POSTGRES, RDP, Rexec, Rlogin, Rsh, SAP/R3, SIP, SMB, SMTP, SMTP Enum, SNMP, SOCKS5, SSH (v1 and v2), Subversion, Teamspeak (TS2), Telnet, VMware-Auth, VNC and XMPP.

Download THC Hydra here: https://www.thc.org/thc-hydra/

If you are a developer, you can also contribute to the tool’s development.

6. Medusa

Medusa is also a password cracking tool similar to THC Hydra. It claims to be a speedy parallel, modular and login brute forcing tool. It supports HTTP, FTP, CVS, AFP, IMAP, MS SQL, MYSQL, NCP, NNTP, POP3, PostgreSQL, pcAnywhere, rlogin, SMB, rsh, SMTP, SNMP, SSH, SVN, VNC, VmAuthd and Telnet. While cracking the password, host, username and password can be flexible input while performing the attack.

Medusa is a command line tool, so you need to learn commands before using the tool. Efficiency of the tool depends on network connectivity. On a local system, it can test 2000 passwords per minute.

With this tool, you can also perform a parallel attack. Suppose you want to crack passwords of a few email accounts simultaneously. You can specify the username list along with the password list.

Read more about this here: http://foofus.net/goons/jmk/medusa/medusa.html

Download Medusa here: http://www.foofus.net/jmk/tools/medusa-2.1.1.tar.gz

7. OphCrack

OphCrack is a free rainbow-table based password cracking tool for Windows. It is the most popular Windows password cracking tool, but can also be used on Linux and Mac systems. It cracks LM and NTLM hashes. For cracking Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7, free rainbow-tables are also available.

A live CD of OphCrack is also available to simplify the cracking. One can use the Live CD of OphCrack to crack Windows-based passwords. This tool is available for free.

Download OphCrack here: http://ophcrack.sourceforge.net/

Download free and premium rainbow tables for OphCrack here: http://ophcrack.sourceforge.net/tables.php

How to prevent Brute Force Attacks

• Leaking information
• Account lockout
• Password complexity
• Throttle requests