Password Recovery

Password retriveal is the process of recovering passwords from data that has been stored in or transmitted by a computer system. A common approach is to repeatedly try guesses for the password. The purpose of password cracking might be to help a user recover a forgotten password (though installing an entirely new password is less of a security risk, but involves system administration privileges), to gain unauthorized access to a system, or as a preventive measure by system administrators to check for easily crackable passwords. On a file-by-file basis, password cracking is utilized to gain access to digital evidence for which a judge has allowed access but the particular file’s access is restricted.

The time to crack a password is related to bit strength , which is a function of the password’s information entropy. Most methods of password cracking require the computer to produce many candidate passwords, each of which is checked. Brute-force cracking, in which a computer tries every possible key or password until it succeeds, is the lowest common denominator of password cracking. More common methods of password cracking, such as dictionary attacks, pattern checking, word list substitution, etc., attempt to reduce the number of trials required and will usually be attempted before brute force.