how hackers hack passwords

Most of the users don't care to choose difficult to-guess-password which simplifies the task of a password cracker. and fb account get hackedThe most common password-stealing methods are:

1. Dictionary attacks.
2. Brute force attacks.
3. Social engineering.

Dictionary attacks.

To perform a dictionary attack,a hacker uses a dictionary which is a list of common words.The dictionary attack program compares each word in the dictionary against the user password.Dictionary attack can also crack encrypted passwords,the program encrypts the first word in a dictionary and compares it with the encrypted password.If the encrypted dictionary word and the password are not similar,the program encrypts the next word and compares it with the password this continues until the encrypted word and the encrypted password match or until the program reaches the last wordin the dictionary.

A hacker needs a file that contains password details of the target user,the hacker uses vulnerability-examining tools such as scanners ,to determine the vulnerability of the target system.Next,the hacker attempts to access the password file to find out the user and passwords.In most systems ,password files store user names in the clear text format and the password  in encrypted format.

   A hacker carries out a dictionary attack by using a file,which contains infromation about the owner of the password.A dictionary can contain the following types of words:

1. The name of the user.
2. Names of the user's spouse or children.
3. Pet names.
4. Date of birth of the user or his or her family members.
5. Place of the residence of the user.
6. Names of famous movies,music albums,places.

Famous dictionary attack tools:

• Cain and Abel
• Crack
• Aircrack-ng
• John the Ripper
• L0phtCrack
• Metasploit Project
• Ophcrack

Brute Force Attacks

A brute force attack employs all possible combination of letters,numbers and special characters to determine the target password.It can be used to extract complex passwords.However ,the process of trying out all possible combinations makes brute force attack a time-consuming task.The speed pf the functioning of a brute force attack program depends upon the following facts:

• Processing speed of the computer.Brute force attack requires a large amount of RAM and processing time.As the speed of processor increases and size of RAM increases the time to carry out brute force attack decreases
• Length of the password: As the number of characters in the target password increases,the time for cracking that password also increases.
• Location of the file that contains password:The time required for cracking a password from a password file on a local computer is less than the time required for cracking a password from a file on a remote network

A brute force attack create a word list that contains all possible combination of letters,digits and the special characters. Then the program encrypts each word in the list,one at a time.After encrypting a word,the program compares it wit the encrypted target password if it matches then password is cracked otherwise it continues.

Famous Brute force attack tools:

• Aircrack-ng
• Rainbow Crack
• Cain and Abel
• L0phtCrack
• Ophcrack
• Crack

• Hashcat

• SAMInside

• DaveGrohl

• Ncrack

• THC Hydra

Social engineering

Phishing − Phishing is an e-mail fraud method in which the perpetrator sends out legitimate-looking emails, in an attempt to gather personal and financial information from recipients.