Summary

In this book, we have introduced you to the concepts of passwords, how they can and should be stored, and various common implementations of passwords so you can recover them if you need to. You have learned how to install cracking tools, as well as when to avoid leveraging cracking tools by using techniques such as OSINT to recover passwords instead. You have also learned how to approach some common use cases of password storage, how to access password hashes, and how to start recovering those passwords. As we have seen though, our success will be dependent on how the original password was constructed, as well as how it was stored. These skills were discussed to allow you to try and retrieve passwords when necessary, to either allow for recovery of important data or information targeted in a penetration-testing/red-team scenario.

However, it is important that both users and systems protect their passwords appropriately to limit the possibility of compromise by unauthorized...