Cryptography

Terms

• Encoding = form of data representation like base64 or hexadecimal.
• Cryptanalysis = attacking cryptography by finding a weakness in the underlying maths.
• Hash = output of a hash function.
  • Hash function = converts data to fixed size values that are nearly impossible to reverse.
  • Hash collision = different inputs gives the same output in hash function. Unavoidable.
• Rainbow table = table of plain text passwords and their hashes
• Salting = adding random text to end of each password to fight against rainbow tables.

Recognising password hashes

Unix style password hashes have recognizable prefix like ¹. ^2y or ⁶.

Automated hash recognition tools might be helpful. For example this.

Great page with example hashes

Password Cracking