OSCP Password Attacks and Cracking

Question 1

What is the difference between online and offline password attacks?

Accepted Answer

Online attacks guess passwords against live services; offline attacks crack captured hashes without network interaction

Answer

Online attacks target web applications; offline attacks target desktop apps

Answer

Online attacks require internet access; offline attacks work on a local network

Answer

Online attacks use wordlists; offline attacks use brute force only

Question 2

What tool is commonly used in OSCP to brute-force SSH, FTP, and HTTP login services?

Accepted Answer

Hydra

Answer

John the Ripper

Answer

Hashcat

Answer

CrackMapExec

Question 3

What Hydra command would brute-force SSH on host 10.10.10.10 using username 'admin' with the rockyou wordlist?

Accepted Answer

hydra -l admin -P /usr/share/wordlists/rockyou.txt 10.10.10.10 ssh

Answer

hydra -u admin -w /usr/share/wordlists/rockyou.txt ssh://10.10.10.10

Answer

hydra --user admin --wordlist rockyou.txt --service ssh 10.10.10.10

Answer

hydra -U admin -L rockyou.txt 10.10.10.10:22

Question 4

What is a 'pass-the-hash' (PtH) attack and when is it used in OSCP?

Accepted Answer

Authenticating to Windows services using an NTLM hash directly without cracking it

Answer

Cracking an NTLM hash and using the plaintext password

Answer

Passing a hash to a password cracker for offline analysis

Answer

Hashing a plaintext password to bypass a password strength requirement

Question 5

What type of hash does Windows use by default for local account authentication in modern systems?

Accepted Answer

NTLM (NT hash)

Answer

MD5

Answer

SHA-256

Answer

bcrypt

Question 6

Which hashcat attack mode uses a wordlist to crack password hashes?

Accepted Answer

Mode 0 (Straight/Wordlist attack)

Answer

Mode 3 (Mask attack)

Answer

Mode 6 (Hybrid Wordlist + Mask)

Answer

Mode 1 (Combination attack)