Brute Force Attack Password Discovery With Defined Character Set

Brute Force Attack Password Discovery With Defined Character Set

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Subject Author Date
Brute Force Attack Password Discovery With Defined Character Set Patient Guy 03-01-2008
Posted by Patient Guy on March 1, 2008, 1:02 pm
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I have an encrypted ZIP archive created in June and the contents so private
that I obviously created a unique name I swear I would never forget (or
really need to). And so guess what: I forgot it.

I have been racking my brain on some words that I am sure I would have
used. At least I have a fair idea that I did not use characters like 'z'
or 'q' or 'x' or their uppercase variants.

I want some software that allows me to define a limited set of characters
in a string and for all their permutations to be used in a brute force
attack.

I have been using Ultimate Zip Cracker and at least know that the password
is more than 6 characters long using digits, upper, and lowercase. I know
that the password is probably composed of an English or more like a Turkish
word (Turkish has 6 more characters not in common with English character
set), but dictionary attacks are only in English and will be a waste of
time, I fear. And I may have used digits corresponding to a birth year.

I would like to use a tool in which I define the character set, including
non-ASCII characters like ç or ü or ? and which also might include "words" or
"phrases" (specific character sequences appended to created strings...like
'2007' or '1963' or '1960').

Any recommendations?

Posted by Todd H. on March 1, 2008, 2:21 pm
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> I have an encrypted ZIP archive created in June and the contents so private
> that I obviously created a unique name I swear I would never forget (or
> really need to). And so guess what: I forgot it.
>
> I have been racking my brain on some words that I am sure I would have
> used. At least I have a fair idea that I did not use characters like 'z'
> or 'q' or 'x' or their uppercase variants.
>
> I want some software that allows me to define a limited set of characters
> in a string and for all their permutations to be used in a brute force
> attack.
>
> I have been using Ultimate Zip Cracker and at least know that the password
> is more than 6 characters long using digits, upper, and lowercase. I know
> that the password is probably composed of an English or more like a Turkish
> word (Turkish has 6 more characters not in common with English character
> set), but dictionary attacks are only in English and will be a waste of
> time, I fear. And I may have used digits corresponding to a birth year.
>
> I would like to use a tool in which I define the character set, including
> non-ASCII characters like ç or ü or ? and which also might include "words" or
> "phrases" (specific character sequences appended to created strings...like
> '2007' or '1963' or '1960').
>
> Any recommendations?


Advanced Zip Recovery from ElcomSoft purports to have customzizeable
brute forcing.
http://www.openwall.com/passwords/zip-winzip-archives

Exercise to the reader whether its replacement Advanced Archive
Password Recovery has that same feature.

Best Regards,
--
Todd H.
http://www.toddh.net/

Posted by Sebastian G. on March 1, 2008, 3:47 pm
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Patient Guy wrote:

> I have an encrypted ZIP archive


IIRC the effective security of the PKZIP 2.x encryption algorithmus is only
about 32 bits, so why do you resort to bruteforcing?

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