Automatic Windows XP Password Cracking with Ophcrack
“Every man-made security measure can and will be broken.” That’s my motto when I secure my car, my house, my belongings, my money, my computer, and - most importantly - my data. If God did not protect it, with enough time, it will be exploited.
Password-locked Laptop
A couple of weeks ago, my dad’s boss dug an old 2002 laptop out of his garage. It was a decent IBM ThinkPad with Windows XP. His only problem was that he did not remember the Administrator password. They went to various computer shops like Circuit City, Best Buy, and Goodwill Computer Works to get an estimate on the time and cost it would take to crack or just reset the master Windows password. To their dismay, the price quotes ran at least $50 and the required time would take at least 24 hours! My dad knew that I would be able to find a way to crack it in a short amount of time and at a cheaper cost. So, his boss hired me to do it instead.
Ophcrack
After a quick search on Digg.com I chose the easiest, quickest, and most foolproof way of cracking Windows passwords:
Ophcrack is a Windows password cracker based on rainbow tables. It is a very efficient implementation of rainbow tables done by the inventors of the method. It comes with a GTK+ Graphical User Interface and runs on Windows, Mac OS X (Intel CPU) as well as on Linux.
Automatic LiveCD
Ophcrack is pretty useless if you have no access to any operating system (especially the one you are trying to crack). For that problem, the creators of Ophcrack released a Linux liveCD - much like Knoppix - that automatically cracks the Windows password without any questions, options, or promptings. Just boot from the CD/DVD drive before the BIOS attempts the hard drive and leave it for a couple of minutes (depending on the password complexity).
When I cracked the IBM ThinkPad, it was actually my first time using Ophcrack. I was surprised when it revealed the simple password in about 3 minutes! My dad told his boss the password and he was like, “Oh yeah … I remember now. I used my childhood nickname as my password!”
In the end, I earned some respect and $30 for about 3 minutes of work!
April 26th, 2007 at 9:09 pm
try out winternals emergency rescue disk, you can reset passwords in half a second.
May 2nd, 2007 at 1:48 am
Pls i want to know how i can get pasword recover to recover my pass and also i need some help about hacking
Thanks
May 4th, 2007 at 7:47 am
Another way of cracking a windows password is to log in under safe mode. Windows allows you to log in and then edit anything you want. Just go in under users in the control panel and then select the account. I have reset password that way many time for people who forget their passwords.
May 5th, 2007 at 7:58 pm
Don’t you think it is kind of ironic that the headliner to hackernotcracker.com at this time is a tool used to crack into windows passwords with automated cracking software? It seems to be more like hackerANDcracker.com…
May 6th, 2007 at 9:23 pm
Irony, its up to you to use this for good or for evil. What I just did, as according to the above article, was for good.
May 16th, 2007 at 3:37 pm
Thank you for taking the time to post, this crack was for good cause and is very useful but Irony is right. Its ok, I won’t tell
June 5th, 2007 at 1:47 pm
ihave a new toshiba laptop a105 s4547 and somehow it was bios locked out i only intered a windoews password shut it off the next morning went to boot it up now iam locked out from it is their software that i can use i tried spotmau it didnt work any suggestions pleas
June 13th, 2007 at 8:52 am
good
June 14th, 2007 at 7:23 am
guys i have learnt a lot from this site am an IT enthuasiast and am glad i bumped into this
July 2nd, 2007 at 9:47 am
hi please send me link
July 13th, 2007 at 11:10 am
so is this program safe or not plz get back to me
July 15th, 2007 at 5:50 pm
dev, I assure you that its safe. I use it frequently.
July 16th, 2007 at 8:19 pm
I have a dell latitude c510 laptop, when i switch on this message appears ” this computer system, #5xzd71s-595b, is protected by a password authenication system. you cannot access the data on this computer without the correct password.
pls type in the primary or administrator password and press .
pls help i cannot remember the passord.
August 1st, 2007 at 5:17 am
Thank you…
August 19th, 2007 at 8:56 am
i wankt to crack lap pw
October 2nd, 2007 at 4:47 pm
if the program above does not work there is another program called emergency rescue Disk with locksmith version 2003. I have used it many time for lost passwords. It works great on XP. I am looking for the same tool for Mac O/S for the friends who have similar problems. The biggest problem is for old hardware that gets stored for a long period of time. I find the ERD 2003 to be my best friend in this case
October 24th, 2007 at 6:59 pm
Is it possible to make a password that this passwordcracker wont crack? Or is it just a matter of time before the even safest password gets cracked?
October 25th, 2007 at 9:49 am
Jan Egil, there is only one way (that I know) to prevent this from happening. You need to encrypt your file system. That requires those editions of Windows XP/Vista that are premium like Professional, Premium, Ultimate, etc. But like you said in your own comment, I believe that anything man made, given enough time, will be exploited.
October 25th, 2007 at 1:00 pm
At least there is a good way then. Is it standard in XP Proffesional, or does it require a some kind of plugin?
October 25th, 2007 at 10:06 pm
you know i’m not sure how. I would look in google on the efs (encrypted file system) to see how to enable it. but I know its not enabled by default.
November 10th, 2007 at 9:12 am
Thanx
November 11th, 2007 at 3:06 pm
how do u work up ophcrack to get to work
January 12th, 2008 at 5:49 am
To crack Bios Password just turn off the battery of your motherboard PC. To crack log on password, what you need is your brain.
January 26th, 2008 at 9:00 pm
Ophcrack did not work. This particular laptop had deactivated the administrator account. Ophcrack showed the administrator and guest accounts. It did not show any of the domains, user names with passwords. Does anybody know of a program that can read the SAM file?
This particular laptop has several users and passwords that did not display under Ophcrack.
Thanks
January 30th, 2008 at 8:08 pm
You need to use a tool to recover the syskey. All of the Windows password hashes are encrypted with it. First recover the syskey, then run l0phtcrack or john the ripper.
If your problem is a BIOS password, many of the new machines use a chip to store that password that must be sucked with an i2c programmer, and the recovered data cracked. This requires skillful soldering on the main board. Good luck.
April 12th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
Hi…I have a new laptop that my brother used and now its mine. HE does not remeber the administrator password and the bios is locked it need the system password and the admin password to unlock….. I tried to use a lot of bootable CD but I cannot change anything in the BIOS setup in order to load the CD…. does anyone know how I can fix this????
April 29th, 2008 at 8:40 am
if u noe how i can get hold of a free version of ophcrack live pls email me- qtclit@hotmail.com
May 18th, 2008 at 2:49 pm
Nice trick
let me check is it working or not
i have seen many such softwares but doent work at all
Is it working on XP SP3
May 20th, 2008 at 6:05 pm
I have an issue when my machine starts up. I type in my password and the machine accepts it. How can I download something to screw up the machine so I don’t have to work today?
Oh yeah, and I’ve been itching myself again too.
June 9th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
(richard)
create yourself a virus or download a trojan and your computer should be out in no time. you should make your virus in notepad save as a .bat and click on it. idk make over a thousand porn sites com up and blame it on someone but keep them coming up untill it crashes
July 1st, 2008 at 9:53 pm
i m a com.master. i forget my syskey password.there is no way to reinstall win xp.please contact me and tell me how to reset it withot instalation.
publish_001@yahoo.com
July 10th, 2008 at 11:13 pm
i am very thankful to you
July 13th, 2008 at 9:44 pm
thank you
July 13th, 2008 at 9:52 pm
God bless u
July 13th, 2008 at 9:53 pm
Thank you for ur help
July 28th, 2008 at 12:59 am
hi, my students u whana now any thing new about computer
a cool trik to hake a computer .first open steart and right
cmd & press enter then command prompt will be open then right
net user & press enter ……………………………
then u will see that some user information then anilise
and then right (net user {user name} *)then right the password
& again retype it(the pass will be not shoon)
August 1st, 2008 at 8:07 pm
I just gave a try to Ophcrack on a Dell Laptop. It took 10 minutes, it found a simple password for my user, but not the Admin password (it showed: not found). Before infact I put a passwprd 17 chars long, with Capital and non capital LetTerS and with number and special chars. So at the end of the day, if the password is complex enough the software does not work…
August 26th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
Hi there,
I tried the Ophcrack. It did not work with the graphics but worked in TEXT mode. I was able to see an NT password but no LM. What does LM mean? Anyways when I rebooted the laptop( that runs on Vista Home Premium) and tried the password… it would stil not let me in…. it displaced a message underneath saying HINT: is and then under that Reset Password. Hmmmm why was I not able to get in. Is it possible from the many attempts previous to using Ophcrack , that it got locked? When I try to reset it- is asks for some type of reset CD or USB???? Apparently you can creat one for furture need. Well one was never created. So now what?
Help anyone?