Module 06: System Hacking
Objective
The goal of system hacking is to gain access, escalate privileges, execute applications,
and hide files.
The objective of this lab is to help students learn to monitor a system remotely and to
extract hidden files and other tasks that include:
●Extracting administrative passwords
●Hiding files and extracting hidden files
●Recovering passwords
●Monitoring a system remotely
Scenario
Password cracking is one of the crucial stages of system hacking. Hacking often begins
with password cracking attempts. A password is a key piece of information necessary to
access a system. Consequently, most attackers use password cracking techniques to
gain unauthorized access. An attacker may either crack a password manually by
guessing it, or use automated tools and techniques such as a dictionary or a brute-force
method. Most password cracking techniques are successful because of weak or easily
guessable passwords.
The labs in this module demonstrate just how easily hackers can gather password
information from your network, and describe password vulnerabilities that exist in
computer networks, as well as countermeasures to help prevent these vulnerabilities
from being exploited on your systems.
Exercise 1: Dumping and Cracking SAM Hashes to
Extract Plaintext Passwords
The Security Account Manager (SAM) is a database file present on Windows machines
that stores user accounts and security descriptors for users on a local computer. It
stores users' passwords in a hashed format (in LM hash and NTLM hash). Because a
hash function is one-way, this provides some measure of security for the storage of the
passwords.
