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Experiment No. 06: Familiarize With The Brute Force Attack

Here are the responses to your questions: A collision in the MD5 hash algorithm occurs when two distinct inputs hash to the same output. Since MD5 produces a 128-bit hash value, there is a possibility of two different inputs hashing to the same value. This weakness can be exploited to generate files with the same MD5 hash, undermining the integrity checking functionality of MD5 checksums. Passwords in phpBB are stored in the database. phpBB2 used MD5 hashing to store passwords, but phpBB3 upgraded to a more secure hashing algorithm to make passwords more resistant to brute force cracking attempts. During the first login on a phpBB3 board, passwords from phpBB2 are converted to the

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82 views4 pages

Experiment No. 06: Familiarize With The Brute Force Attack

Here are the responses to your questions: A collision in the MD5 hash algorithm occurs when two distinct inputs hash to the same output. Since MD5 produces a 128-bit hash value, there is a possibility of two different inputs hashing to the same value. This weakness can be exploited to generate files with the same MD5 hash, undermining the integrity checking functionality of MD5 checksums. Passwords in phpBB are stored in the database. phpBB2 used MD5 hashing to store passwords, but phpBB3 upgraded to a more secure hashing algorithm to make passwords more resistant to brute force cracking attempts. During the first login on a phpBB3 board, passwords from phpBB2 are converted to the

Uploaded by

Ali Ahmad
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Experiment No.

06
Title: Brute Force Attack. Object: Familiarize with the brute force attack. Description: Brute Force Attack

A method of decryption in which a cryptanalyst, lacking a key, solves a cipher by testing all possible keys. This tends to be impractical for most ciphers without the use of a computer, and for the most sophisticated modern ciphers, brute force is all but impossible. In cryptanalysis, a brute force attack is a method of defeating a cryptographic scheme by systematically trying a large number of possibilities; for example, a large number of the possible keys in a key space in order to decrypt a message. In most schemes, the theoretical possibility of a brute force attack is recognized, but it is set up in such a way that it would be computationally infeasible to carry out. Accordingly, one definition of "breaking" a cryptographic scheme is to find a method faster than a brute force attack. The selection of an appropriate key length depends on the practical feasibility of performing a brute force attack. By obfuscating the data to be encoded, brute force attacks are made less effective as it is more difficult to determine when one has succeeded in breaking the code. Example of Brute Force Decryption: For example in DES the key length=56 bits, the cracker has to try 256 tries to break the DES.

K
0 1 1 . . . 256
MD5 ALGORIRHM:

000000.0000 000000.0001 000000.0010 . . . 11111111111

The MD5 algorithm (Message Digest 5) is a cryptographic message digest algorithm.

The algorithm consists of four distinct rounds, which have a slightly different design from that of MD4. Message-digest size, as well as padding requirements, remains the same. No. of Rounds: 4 Input Message Length: Arbitrary Output: 128 bit

The MD5 algorithm takes as input a message of arbitrary length and produces as output a 128-bit "fingerprint" or "message digest" of the input. It is conjectured that it is computationally infeasible to produce two messages having the same message digest, or to produce any message having a given prespecified target message digest. The MD5 algorithm is intended for digital signature applications, where a large file must be "compressed" in a secure manner before being encrypted with a private (secret) key under a public-key cryptosystem such as RSA or PGP.

Applications of MD5: MD5 digests have been widely used in the software world to provide some assurance that a transferred file has arrived intact. For example, file servers often provide a precomputed MD5 checksum for the files, so that a user can compare the checksum of the

downloaded file to it. Unix-based operating systems include MD5 sum utilities in their distribution packages, whereas Windows users use third-party applications. However, now that it is easy to generate MD5 collisions, it is possible for the person who created the file to create a second file with the same checksum, so this technique cannot protect against some forms of malicious tampering. Also, in some cases the checksum cannot be trusted (for example, if it was obtained over the same channel as the downloaded file), in which case MD5 can only provide error-checking functionality: it will recognize a corrupt or incomplete download, which becomes more likely when downloading larger files. MD5 is widely used to store passwords. To mitigate against the vulnerabilities mentioned above, one can add a salt to the passwords before hashing them. Some implementations may apply the hashing function more than oncesee key strengthening. Where the password in Windows XP is stored and in which format?

Location of password storage:


The passwords in windows XP are stored in "C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\SAM" "C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\SYSTEM" Windows XP doesnt actually store passwords; it uses a destructive algorithm called MD4 to create a hash or the passwords. So you cant just read them. However they can easily be brute forced, Windows XP converts all login passwords to Upper Case before hashing. Make sure your passwords are 7 character or longer, and are not made up of dictionary words.

Format of the Password:


The password hashes are in binary format and will not do you much good to just read them. PHPBB(): phpBB3 uses a complex hashing algorithm in order to prevent someone from determining the plaintext value of a password. phpBB2, however, used a much simpler and less secure md5 algorithm to store passwords. This is one of the many reasons why we have decided to no longer support the phpBB2 software. Because hashes cannot be reversed, phpBB3 is set to convert phpBB2 hashes to the new phpBB3 standard during the first user login. Those users who registered while phpBB.com used phpBB2 and did not login on the new phpBB3 board continue to have their password hashes stored in the old format. Passwords stored in the old format are much less secure than those stored in the new format. The attackers have been focusing purely on the passwords stored in the old format."

LAB TASK:

What is Collision in MD5 hash algorithm? Where the password is stored in phpbb?

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