Basics

[supreme]

Hi,

i'm quite new to hashcat and password cracking so have a little patience with me...

setup:

Intel - 4770k
gigabyte 680GTX
32 GB 2400mhz
crucial ssd

when i try to crack a MD5 Hash i get speed around 2601M/s.

basics:

Q1:
what is the main difference between oclHashcat-plus and lite ?
it seems that plus can do the same stuff like lite, so whats the purpose of the lite version ? when exactly would i choose lite instead of plus ?

Q2:
it seems that hashcat only uses CPU power, why would i ever use this old method ? only if i dont have the proper hardware or is there any other reason ?

Q3:
is there any significant speed difference between a windows8 system and lets say the same hardware powered by ubuntu ?

Q4:
sometimes i stumble over "Forceware", isnt that just an old term for nvidia drivers ? or are they some special drivers around i/we should install to get even better performance ?

i've a lot more questions but let's start with that

[epixoip]

what is the main difference between oclHashcat-plus and lite ? when exactly would i choose lite instead of plus ?

plus supports cracking multiple hashes & multiple attack modes. lite supports cracking only a single hash, and only supports brute force. because lite is optimized for single hash brute force, it is much, much faster than plus. so quite obviously, you would use lite when you need to brute force a single hash.

it seems that hashcat only uses CPU power, why would i ever use this old method ?

straight wordlist attacks are faster & more efficient on cpu. cpu version also supports cracking passwords that are longer than 15 characters (although the next version of plus will as well). the cpu version also has a table attack engine. the cpu version is also great for developing and testing mangling rules. it also supports more algorithms than plus.

is there any significant speed difference between a windows8 system and lets say the same hardware powered by ubuntu ?

no.

sometimes i stumble over "Forceware", isnt that just an old term for nvidia drivers?

yes.

one last note: you seem to care an awful lot about performance. you should not use an nvidia gpu if performance is so important to you.

[supreme]

First of all thx epixoip for clearing this up for me.

you mentioned different attack modes, is there something like a rule of thumb when to use which attack method or why method xy is less powerfull or just not the best way to do it.

like:

single md5 -> lite + bruceforce
wpa2 -> plus + dict.file

etc, something like this would be very nice to understand the concept.

"...when i try to crack a MD5 Hash i get speed around 2601M/s...."

are those numbers OK-ish or way too slow ? i know that AMD is faster but it wasn't my decision....

[supreme]

note:

Code:

cudaHashcat-lite64.exe -n 800 --gpu-loops 1024 -1 ?l?d?s?u --outfile-watch 0 --restore-timer 0 --runtime 28 --pw-min 8 -m 0 aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa ?1?1?1?1?1?1?1?1?1

results:

Session.Name...: cudaHashcat-lite
Status.........: Aborted
Hash.Target....: aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Hash.Type......: MD5
Time.Started...: Tue Jun 11 14:12:48 2013 (28 secs)
Time.Estimated.: Wed Jul 10 04:20:53 2013 (28 days, 14 hours)
Plain.Mask.....: ?1?1?1?1?1?1?1?1
Plain.Text.....: ***nkste
Plain.Length...: 8
Progress.......: 75497472000/6634204312890625 (0.00%)
Speed.GPU.#1...: 2685.8M/s
HWMon.GPU.#1...: 0% Util, 41c Temp, 1980rpm Fan

Started: Tue Jun 11 14:12:48 2013
Stopped: Tue Jun 11 14:13:16 2013

[epixoip]

you mentioned different attack modes, is there something like a rule of thumb when to use which attack method or why method xy is less powerfull or just not the best way to do it.

there's no generic answer to that question. it depends on several factors. experience will help you to determine the best attacks for the specific set you're cracking.

are those numbers OK-ish or way too slow ? i know that AMD is faster but it wasn't my decision....

it's not terribly slow, but it's not impressive by any means. a Radeon 7970 can pull around 9500 MH/s on single hash MD5.

[epixoip]

Code:

cudaHashcat-lite64.exe -n 800 --gpu-loops 1024 -1 ?l?d?s?u --outfile-watch 0 --restore-timer 0 --runtime 28 --pw-min 8 -m 0 aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa ?1?1?1?1?1?1?1?1?1

you don't need to do all that. lite has a benchmark mode.

here's a benchmark on a single 7970 for comparison:

epixoip@butters:~/oclHashcat-lite-0.15$ ./oclHashcat-lite64.bin -d 1 -m 0 -b --benchmark-mode 1
oclHashcat-lite v0.15 by atom starting...

Password lengths: 1 - 54
Watchdog: Temperature abort trigger disabled
Watchdog: Temperature retain trigger disabled
Device #1: Tahiti, 2048MB, 1100Mhz, 32MCU
Device #2: skipped by user
Device #3: skipped by user

[s]tatus [p]ause [r]esume [q]uit =>
NOTE: Runtime limit reached, aborting...


Hash.Type....: MD5
Speed.GPU.#1.: 9757.1M/s


Started: Tue Jun 11 05:21:22 2013
Stopped: Tue Jun 11 05:21:48 2013

[supreme]

WOW, your numbers are impressive compared to those i have:

cudaHashcat-lite64.exe -d 1 -m 0 -b --benchmark-mode 1
Hash.Type....: MD5
Speed.GPU.#1.: 2682.8M/s

[epixoip]

which is why i said, if you care about performance, don't use nvidia