Diving deeper in the rabbit hole of hashcat, hash extracting, crypto and decrypting
#1
I recently found myself trying to understand and modify some hash extract scripts, and I realized that I need to go much deeper in the rabbit hole of crypto to understand them and hope to contribute to solutions such as hash extract scripts on the long run.

Does anyone have advice in terms of books or fora to go deeper? With deeper I mean going from using the tool towards understanding the different encryption types, how they are mixed for common applications.
In my case I am especially interested crypto wallets and their encryption types. How hashes are extracted from wallet files and how does hashcat and other tools like JtR know if a password is a hit? Is there some formats or encoding they are looking for?
How is cracking optimized, e.g. shorter hashes in some cases?
Any tips on where to start this deep dive and journey down the encryption/decryption hole are appreciated.
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#2
(09-10-2021, 02:05 PM)monyanus Wrote: I recently found myself trying to understand and modify some hash extract scripts, and I realized that I need to go much deeper in the rabbit hole of crypto to understand them and hope to contribute to solutions such as hash extract scripts on the long run.

Does anyone have advice in terms of books or fora to go deeper? With deeper I mean going from using the tool towards understanding the different encryption types, how they are mixed for common applications.
In my case I am especially interested crypto wallets and their encryption types. How hashes are extracted from wallet files and how does hashcat and other tools like JtR know if a password is a hit? Is there some formats or encoding they are looking for? 
How is cracking optimized, e.g. shorter hashes in some cases?
Any tips on where to start this deep dive and journey down the encryption/decryption hole are appreciated.

How can I get in touch with you?
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#3
(09-10-2021, 02:05 PM)monyanus Wrote: I recently found myself trying to understand and modify some hash extract scripts, and I realized that I need to go much deeper in the rabbit hole of crypto to understand them and hope to contribute to solutions such as hash extract scripts on the long run.

Does anyone have advice in terms of books or fora to go deeper? With deeper I mean going from using the tool towards understanding the different encryption types, how they are mixed for common applications.
In my case I am especially interested crypto wallets and their encryption types. How hashes are extracted from wallet files and how does hashcat and other tools like JtR know if a password is a hit? Is there some formats or encoding they are looking for? 
How is cracking optimized, e.g. shorter hashes in some cases?
Any tips on where to start this deep dive and journey down the encryption/decryption hole are appreciated.

As much as I hate to drive people away from persistent information sources such as forum posts, the hashcat discord server is relatively active and we can discuss a lot more in real time there about some of the inner workings of hashcat and address specific questions you might have. Perhaps with some questions answered and some more information we can update this thread after so others can find it easier.

https://discord.com/invite/hashcat
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#4
The top post is 3 years old.
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#5
(12-11-2024, 07:27 PM)buka Wrote: The top post is 3 years old.

Ahhh, good spot. Gravedigging by probably spam again. Should have known.
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#6
Thanks @Chick3nman. I will remember for the next time when I need to go technical to find a solution. When I wrote the post, it turned out the project I was working on did not have a MAC but only an public-key to check if the entered password was correct. EC is not something hashcat/GPU can handle as far as I understand. I ended up solving it with custom code on the CPU.
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