This guest post was written by Blair Mathis from LaptopLogic.com – your premier source for the latest laptop software news and best laptop accessories.
Computer passwords are like locks on doors – they keep honest people honest. If someone wishes to gain access to your laptop or computer, a simple login password will not stop them. Most computer users do not realize how simple it is to access the login password for a computer, and end up leaving vulnerable data on their computer, unencrypted and easy to access.
Are you curious how easy it is for someone to gain access to your computer? If so, read on to see the technique one might use to figure out your computer password.
Windows
Windows is still the most popular operating system, and the method used to discover the login password is the easiest. The program used is called Ophcrack, and it is free. Ophcrack is based on Slackware, and uses rainbow tables to solve passwords up to 14 characters in length. The time required to solve a password? Generally 10 seconds. The expertise needed? None.
Simply download the Ophcrack ISO and burn it to a CD (or load it onto a USB drive via UNetbootin). Insert the CD into a machine you would like to gain access to, then press and hold the power button until the computer shuts down. Turn the computer back on and enter BIOS at startup. Change the boot sequence to CD before HDD, then save and exit.
The computer will restart and Ophcrack will be loaded. Sit back and watch as it does all the work for your. Write down the password it gives you, remove the disc, restart the computer, and log in as if it were you own machine.
Mac
The second most popular operating system, OS X is no safer when it comes to password cracking then Windows.
The easiest method would be to use Ophcrack on this, also, as it works with Mac and Linux in addition to Windows. However, there are other methods that can be used, as demonstrated below.
If the Mac runs OS X 10.4, then you only need the installation CD. Insert it into the computer, reboot. When it starts up, select UTILITIES > RESET PASSWORD. Choose a new password and then use that to log in.
If the Mac runs OS X 10.5, restart the computer and press COMMAND + S. When at the prompt, type:
fsck -fy
mount -uw /
launchctl load /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.DirectoryServices.plist
dscl . -passwd /Users/UserName newpassword
That’s it. Now that the password is reset, you can login.
Linux
Finally, there is Linux, an operating system quickly gaining popularity in mainstream, but not so common you’re likely to come across it. Though Mac and Linux are both based on Unix, it is easier to change the password in Linux than it is OS X.
To change the password, turn on the computer and press the ESC key when GRUB appears. Scroll down and highlight ‘Recovery Mode’ and press the ‘B’ key; this will cause you to enter ‘Single User Mode’.
You’re now at the prompt, and logged in as ‘root’ by default. Type ‘passwd’ and then choose a new password. This will change the root password to whatever you enter. If you’re interested in only gaining access to a single account on the system, however, then type ‘passwd username’ replacing ‘username’ with the login name for the account you would like to alter the password for.
Conclusion
There you have it – that is how simple it is for someone to hack your password. It requires no technical skills, no laborious tasks, only simple words or programs. The moral of the story? Encrypt your data to keep it safe. Don’t use only a password, but actually encryption, such as Blowfish or AES-128. There are a number of programs that can do this – TrueCrypt for Windows, or the native encryption found on Ubuntu, creating a disk image in Mac, etc.
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on January 30th, 2009 at 8:56 am
Thank you so much for this post. I have passed it on to a friend who could really use the help with a couple of Computers that were gifted to him.
Baba’s last blog post..The Stone House
on January 30th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
Hello nice post,I did one myself but in my language a few weeks ago on my site…I really recomend it.
Best Regards
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on January 30th, 2009 at 4:20 pm
http://tugazone.net/como-recuperar-as-passwords/
Forgot to place link sorry
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on January 31st, 2009 at 6:05 am
This is what i need.I’ve been long time to find way crack the windows password. Thanks joe…
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on February 12th, 2009 at 10:32 am
Ophcrack is a great tool to crack passwords; however, it’s only effective on Pre-Windows Vista. Although there is a Password Cracker for Vista, I found it to be useless due to password length restrictions.
Beau71’s last blog post..Virtualization
on March 2nd, 2009 at 5:51 am
A few points, one, if you have physical access to a machine it can be cracked. I can just steal your SAM or /etc/passwd info. OPHCrack is ok, but it does not work on Linux or Macs as they don’t use LanManager. Vista doesn’t use LM either (by default) and XP can have LM turned off. The weakness of LM is that it stores two 7 character MD4+DES passwords. If your password is 15 or more characters long XP will not store it as LM. If you use pretty much any GNU/Linux version other than Ubuntu it’ll have you set a root password, which all security experts would have you set anyway on Ubuntu, meaning you need a password to get into single user mode on my computer, so you have no access. My XP computers have LM off, and they use 18-24 character passwords, so you can’t crack them with OPHCrack. What about BSD? How do you crack that? What about people who have BIOS and HDD passwords set? What about those of us with full drive encryption, BIOS, HDD, and 18-24 character passwords on both root and their user on Linux, how do you crack us?
on March 4th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
In Ubuntu first set a BIOS password then set a GRUB password. This will pretty much keep it secure. Be sure not to forget these passwords. But as Arenlor said, if someone has physical access to your computer then it is no longer your computer (one of the 10 immutable facts of computer security)
on March 5th, 2009 at 6:02 pm
Cracking a password is not the same as resetting it. In the first case, the user won’t notice it and won’t take action, which is far more dangerous than in the second case, where it will be noticed.
+ what Arenlor said about bios, boot and HDD passwords and full drive encryption.
There’s also a vista version of ophcrack now which I haven’t tried yet, but the XP version is amazingly fast
Nice write-up, but the title is a little misleading IMHO
on March 11th, 2009 at 1:43 am
I agree with what funk said.
I also think that you should let people know how easy it is to make their computers a little bit safer. By enabling BIOS passwords to prevent people from changing the boot sequence and having a physical lock on the computer case to prevent people from removing the hard drive or resetting the BIOS password.
on March 13th, 2009 at 12:48 am
There is also the excellent NT/XP password reset utility from pnordahl (http://home.eunet.no/pnordahl/ntpasswd/) which will allow you to reset (not crack) any password stored in the SAM. I’ve even used this on NT Domain controllers to reset passwords. + Aicorp and Arenlor.
on March 13th, 2009 at 10:02 pm
OS X and Linux use MD5 hash for passwords, and the passwords are hashed several times if i may add, and Opht crack is for LM hash which is used for authentication windows. I’m not so worried about someone cracking my passwords for my Desktop because its not like strangers will physically access it and if your really worried that much set a password in your BIOS or on GRUB. I believe there is a way to put a password on your EFI partition for OS X. And for windows, well windows itself doesn’t have the fix but just about every motherboard BIOS has a password lock to prevent anyone from booting off of a CD or the HDD. So PC users if your worried about this lock your BIOS and GRUB if you have it, and OS X users look around on google, i saw something on a EFI partition lock of sorts.
on March 14th, 2009 at 2:34 pm
Changing the password isn’t exactly ‘cracking’ it.
on March 16th, 2009 at 11:03 pm
I wouldnt call this cracking. You are booting a disk, that is all.. Why don’t you try to do it the real way with a disassembler
on March 20th, 2009 at 12:42 pm
Install Debian with encrypted partitions that require a pass-phrase key to unlock. By encrypting “/home”, “/var”, “/etc”, “tmp”, “swap”, and by using a long, multi-word, punctuated pass-phrase, the person with physical access but no pass-phrase can’t even get the machine to boot enough to change the root password because the machine can’t finish booting without unlocking the encrypted partitions. Also, nobody can execute an end run by booting to live cd because the important areas of the drive are not readable without the pass-phrase. The pass-phrase is the only way to decrypt the partitions and it is not stored anywhere except your own head (unless you right it down or got it out of a book). If the entered pass-phrase hashes to the correct very large number, then the information on the hard drive is readable, otherwise it is not readable.
on March 26th, 2009 at 10:28 pm
your article doesn’t crack linux passwords, it just replaces them with new ones.
on April 6th, 2009 at 10:02 pm
These are not hacks! They are recovery tools. What is the difference? A recovery tool keeps you from being completely locked out! You aren’t hacking anything these features were written into the OS’s!!!! The very fact that you are posting this as a hack shows that you are nothing but a talent-less “hack!”
on April 8th, 2009 at 1:28 pm
Wow Linux Freak with comments like those its no wonder why linux doesn’t have any market share.
on April 8th, 2009 at 6:59 pm
Linux freak has a good point.
Now they use word like “crack”, and “hack” in every crappy post on the web.
WOW: you should do some researches, we are not in 90’s anymore.
on April 9th, 2009 at 3:39 am
Do you ever think about what you’re writing…?
on April 11th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
Just to make it clear – Truecrypt is multi-platform…not Windows only like the article suggests. Works on Linux just fine, though just for encrypted containers and not full disk encryption
on April 22nd, 2009 at 10:39 am
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on April 22nd, 2009 at 12:03 pm
[...] 5. Saltarse la contraseña de un equipo en la mayoria de los sistemas operativos [...]
on April 22nd, 2009 at 1:00 pm
[...] Crack / Reset Passwords (Win, Mac & Linux) [...]
on April 22nd, 2009 at 3:19 pm
Does the command line method of resetting a Mac OS X 10.5 password still work if you have set an Open Firmware password for the machine? If so, that’s a bad security flaw in the OS!
on April 22nd, 2009 at 4:11 pm
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on April 23rd, 2009 at 3:39 am
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on April 23rd, 2009 at 4:47 am
Well erm it is important to distinguish between these terms
Physical security vs remote security
As soon as anyone has physical access to a computer without disc encryption you’re lost, no matter what OS you’re running.
Crack vs. reset
See http://catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/C/crack.html
This article is bad. Just rename it to “How to reset account passwords on Windows, MacOS and Linux” and it’s fine.
on April 23rd, 2009 at 10:43 am
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on April 23rd, 2009 at 2:26 pm
Bah
This is definitely not a good article.
What if I am using Lilo instead of Grub? What if grub is password-protected? what if the grub list doesn’t have a “Recovery” line? What if root has a password (that it should)?
Bah
Keep trying
on April 23rd, 2009 at 7:53 pm
[...] Joe Tech » How to Crack the Account Password on Any Operating System Computer passwords are like locks on doors – they keep honest people honest. If someone wishes to gain access to your laptop or computer, a simple login password will not stop them. Most computer users do not realize how simple it is to access the login password for a computer, and end up leaving vulnerable data on their computer, unencrypted and easy to access. [...]
on April 23rd, 2009 at 8:55 pm
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on April 25th, 2009 at 8:14 pm
[...] How long would it take me to crack your startup password? At startup, maybe 20 seconds Posted at April 25, 2009 How to Crack the Account Password on Any Operating System [...]
on April 27th, 2009 at 9:07 am
No password can stop you from reading an unecrypted disk if you have physical access. Not even BIOS og GRUB passwords.
In the most difficult cases, take out the disk, put it in a different machine, boot that machine with its own boot disk, and you have r/w access to the disk.
on April 30th, 2009 at 4:10 pm
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on April 30th, 2009 at 6:53 pm
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on May 4th, 2009 at 3:11 pm
Alternate way for Windows – Boot into Safe Mode on some versions of Windows there is an alternate administrator account only there when in safe mode. Boot into it go into user control and delete the password EASY!!!
on May 7th, 2009 at 10:42 pm
Here is a great way to break into Vista without need the password:
http://securitytube.net/Using-Backtrack-to-0wn-Windows-Vista-video.aspx
requires backtrack
on May 8th, 2009 at 6:54 am
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on May 9th, 2009 at 1:56 am
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on May 10th, 2009 at 6:43 pm
Here is a great way to break into Vista without need the password:
http://www.resetwindowspassword.com
on May 11th, 2009 at 11:36 pm
Breaking password on recovery mode is easy, but the catch is if there is anything on the machine worth protecting, first things you will come across are BIOS +boot loader/ Grub Password. and with these “techs” you wont be able to cross BIOS or Boot loader. Little more reality is expect. But Well compiled article. w00t!
on May 18th, 2009 at 9:28 am
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on May 24th, 2009 at 3:33 am
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on May 24th, 2009 at 3:43 am
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on June 7th, 2009 at 12:35 pm
This ophcrack is said to be free according to website…. HOWEVER…. it is not….
on June 8th, 2009 at 8:33 pm
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on June 11th, 2009 at 1:40 am
Long time ago , I was confronted with the password problem. Finally , my friend Jane introduce the Windows password Reset 6.0 .It helps me access windows. It’s great!
http://www.resetwindowspassword.com
on June 13th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
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on June 20th, 2009 at 2:00 pm
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on June 22nd, 2009 at 5:02 pm
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on June 29th, 2009 at 1:24 pm
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on July 14th, 2009 at 2:38 am
Good article, for people who want to go a bit further on the “password cracking” subject:
http://www.kaisersblog.com/2009/07/the-magic-behind-the-stars/
KaiserSoze’s last blog post..The magic behind the stars
on July 14th, 2009 at 7:14 am
[...] How to Crack the Account Password on Any Operating System – Computer passwords are like locks on doors – they keep honest people honest. If someone wishes to gain access to your laptop or computer, a simple login password will not stop them. [...]
on July 14th, 2009 at 11:48 am
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on July 15th, 2009 at 4:18 am
hey how does it works in USB Flash, plz if any one know, Or paste the link Thanks
on July 18th, 2009 at 8:25 pm
Really cool article. Geek Squad actually has a tool that automatically rips off all user passwords on Windows 2000, XP, and Vista. Not sure about Mac’s, though
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on July 19th, 2009 at 10:27 am
Why on earth would someone have a passwordless recovery mode on linux
on August 4th, 2009 at 10:59 pm
It is definitely that I need to spend lots of time for study before I can crack the account password.
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on August 24th, 2009 at 1:20 pm
about linux:
grub can and should be password protected so use live CD
on September 16th, 2009 at 11:21 am
It doesn’t work with linux. “passwd Authentication token manipulation error”
on September 18th, 2009 at 11:39 am
@Dan Warne: No, when you have the Open Firmware Password set, you can’t access single user mode, as described in the article, nor can you boot up off the install disc, also described here.
on September 21st, 2009 at 10:25 am
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on September 29th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
If you have physical access then no computer is secure. Even those with bios passwords and encryption. You can easily hide a bit of hardware to capture the keyboard/mouse signals. No one I met ever used an encrypted keyboard.
on September 30th, 2009 at 11:07 am
[...] Password cracking seems like a difficult task but these techniques make it as simple. We’ll show you some software which cracks windows, mac, and linux user account passwords in a just a few minutes. The programs basically do all the hard work for you as noted in this tutorial. [...]
on October 4th, 2009 at 10:43 am
This is great information for anyone who is new to computer ins and outs.
Hard to believe in this day and age anyone could be new to them, but there
are.
on October 17th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
It still amazes me how vulnerable we all are to getting out computers hacked and passwords and logs accessed and used against our knowledge.
But this goes on everyday…
Baz @ Snake Eyes Costume’s last blog post..Gi Joe Costumes Snake Eyes – Halloween Hotness! updated Tue Sep 29 2009 12:51 am CDT
on October 26th, 2009 at 7:54 am
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on November 2nd, 2009 at 6:26 am
Great post! Yet another reason why more should follow your blog. thanks. devi iriawan
on November 2nd, 2009 at 2:16 pm
[...] Original artical posted HERE [...]
on November 14th, 2009 at 1:18 am
Mac and Linux password are not being “cracked” in your article… you are simple changing them…
on November 20th, 2009 at 12:46 am
I have downloaded windows password key 8.0. It is a very quick and useful utility for resetting passwords. It not only supports XP, 2000, and NT, I have personally tested it with Vista Home Premium and Ultimate. It works perfectly to reset any local user account to a blank password.
Just an easy to use bootable CD/DVD . It can also be used on a USB Flash Drive. http://www.lostwindowspassword.com/
on December 20th, 2009 at 3:29 am
i am using acer EXTENSA 4630Z,
how to clear c-mos HDD PASSWD?
i already clear c-mos.
but the HDD PASSWD cant”t clear
anyone pls help me
on December 21st, 2009 at 2:42 pm
Kon boot is the way to go for accessing windows and linux systems without a password
on December 22nd, 2009 at 11:21 pm
I used Windows Password Unlocker to reset the Vista password. Windows Password Unlocker is a professional Windows password recovery tool for those who have lost or forgot Windows passwords including Windows Vista password, Windows 7 password reset…
on December 23rd, 2009 at 2:30 am
Hey ,Since I had registered a number of emailboxes ,chat tools and different useful account. Therefore some of them I always forgot the password.I tried to handle it through password hint. But so many different password hint made me confused.I also tried several free software. It took me two days and got quite messy. Unfortunately none of them work for me. Finally I made it work with password genius. The good news is that it works. The bad news is it is not free.
Check this out:
http://www.password-genius.com/how-to/how-to-recover-my-windows-login-password.html It works for me.
on December 23rd, 2009 at 7:37 am
Interestingly, I see this was posted in January and is just making the rounds among certain computer enthusiasts here in Arkansas.
I guess we are a bit behind the curve.
Good stuff, though…
on January 5th, 2010 at 5:25 pm
actually the singleuser mode hack is much easier, well atleast on 10.5 and 10.6. sometimes you can just type
passwd (account name)
and it asks for the new password. other times, you do
/sbin/mount -uw /
then that sh rtc thing or whatever, it says in singleuser, then when its done you type passwd (account name) i usually do root because that is the system administrator, but whatever floats your boat
on January 26th, 2010 at 7:08 pm
You can reset windows user account password in safe mode(F8 when booting up). But if you forgot windows administrator password, you must reinstall windows OS or use windows password recovery disk. http://www.windowsloginrecovery.com
on February 1st, 2010 at 5:20 pm
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on February 3rd, 2010 at 2:24 am
[...] 5. Saltarse la contraseña de un equipo en la mayoria de los sistemas operativos [...]