OSCP Password Attacks 1 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which tool is primarily used for offline password hash cracking with GPU acceleration?
- John the Ripper
- Hashcat (Correct answer)
- Hydra
- Medusa
Correct answer: Hashcat
Hashcat leverages GPU acceleration for extremely fast offline hash cracking, making it the go-to tool for this purpose.
Question 2: Which file on a Linux system stores hashed user passwords when shadow password support is enabled?
- /etc/passwd
- /etc/shadow (Correct answer)
- /etc/security/passwd
- /etc/login.defs
Correct answer: /etc/shadow
/etc/shadow stores hashed passwords and account expiry data, readable only by root when shadow passwords are enabled.
Question 3: What Hashcat attack mode (-a) performs a straight dictionary attack using a wordlist without modifications?
- -a 0 (Correct answer)
- -a 1
- -a 3
- -a 6
Correct answer: -a 0
Hashcat's -a 0 is the straight/dictionary attack mode that reads each line of a wordlist as a candidate password.
Question 4: Which tool is commonly used for online brute force attacks against SSH, FTP, and HTTP services?
- Hashcat
- John the Ripper
- Hydra (Correct answer)
- Mimikatz
Correct answer: Hydra
Hydra is a fast, flexible online password cracking tool supporting numerous protocols including SSH, FTP, and HTTP/HTTPS.
Question 5: What is a rainbow table attack?
- An attack using signal interference to disrupt wireless authentication
- A precomputed lookup table used to reverse cryptographic hash functions (Correct answer)
- A multi-vector attack combining network and application exploits
- An attack that rotates through multiple wordlists simultaneously
Correct answer: A precomputed lookup table used to reverse cryptographic hash functions
Rainbow tables are precomputed tables for reversing hash functions, trading disk storage for cracking speed via time-memory trade-offs.
Question 6: Which Windows file contains local user account password hashes?
- NTDS.dit
- SYSTEM
- SAM (Correct answer)
- SECURITY
Correct answer: SAM
The SAM (Security Account Manager) database stores local Windows user account password hashes and is locked during system operation.
Question 7: Which type of attack tries every possible character combination systematically until the correct password is found?
- Dictionary attack
- Rule-based attack
- Brute force attack (Correct answer)
- Credential stuffing
Correct answer: Brute force attack
A brute force attack exhaustively tries every possible combination of characters, guaranteeing success but at a potentially enormous time cost.
OSCP Password Attacks 1
Which tool is primarily used for offline password hash cracking with GPU acceleration?