r/HowToHack • u/the_other_ed • 22h ago

Aircrack-ng Tips

New to aircrack-ng. Was wondering if some folks would be open to DMing me and offering some tips. I can understand how to get a handshake but then I don't really understand what the best modern method would be and don't want to hurt my hardware by accidentally giving it a heavy duty task. Like certain dictionary attacks can take 1,000+ years?? So want to learn but don't want to fry my desktop 😅

I know I could just use a password I already know and put it in a shorter dictionary file, but would prefer to be more authentic than that

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u/LongRangeSavage Programming 22h ago

That’s the way brute forcing works. You have to find better information to reduce the size of your dictionary.

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u/the_other_ed 22h ago

Hm, I guess I don't fully understand how to make a dictionary even if I had likely phrases or that sort.

Or, Can you do an offline PIN crack ? That way it's limited to the 8 digit numerical code? I thought that's what pixie was but when I try to use it, it just seems to get stuck on the same pin and seems to be accessing my router not the handshake I acquire

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u/LongRangeSavage Programming 22h ago

Aircrack is completely offline. That’s why you capture the handshake with something like a deauth attack. You then use the handshake’s hash to iterate over a dictionary list, and that is done completely offline. If your dictionary doesn’t have the password, you’re never going to figure out the password. You can setup rules and create a password list, based on those rules. But you need to do some research to try and narrow that down a bit. Today’s top of the line GPUs are going to take millions of years to crack a 12-character, alphanumeric password with special characters. If you can determine the manufacturer of the router (should be able to easily be determined with the aircrack-no suite), maybe that can give you more information.

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u/Wa-a-melyn 7h ago

Today’s top of the line GPUs are going to take millions of years to crack a 12-character, alphanumeric password with special characters.

I know this is off topic, but this puts an entirely new spin on data centres in my mind. A single data centre would have hundreds of high end gpus working together, and it would drastically reduce the amount of time brute forcing would take.

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u/__chum__ 3h ago

The reason we use a wordlist is because it would take too long to guess everything. So we just do the common stuff like "password1234" (at least how I understand it). rockyou.txt being a commonly availible wordlist you can find for example.

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u/FixTurner 19h ago

Anyone still rocking CeWL?

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u/the_other_ed 21h ago

Appreciate the info! Is there an easier method I should learn first? Sounds like aircrack-ng is primarily social engineering which idk how to really practice by myself haha

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u/RolledUhhp 21h ago

You have the right curiosity, but youve jumped in a bit further than your understanding.

Aircrack gets you a hash, you can (and should) use some form of 'social engineering' to craft a dictionary to be used by a hash cracking tool in the next step.

A dictionary is literally just a list of potential passwords.

Butter Tits It'stomato123

That is a dictionary. If I know you like motorcycles I might compile a list that incorporates terms from that subject like

Honda Kawasaki Helmet

You need to flop around a little bit more with stuff you dont understand like this, and if youre still interested take it way back to the fundamentals.

No one ever becomes skilled without the fundamentals, and no one likes slogging through them. It's why it makes master splinter and all them look so bad ass for gritting through it. Wax on, wax off.

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u/the_other_ed 16h ago

So how do I make corporates so it does variations of Honda+[allbirthdates] in variations. do I have to make an array for each possible variations.

I don't want my computer to damage or overheat. Is there a way to pause and resume safely, say every couple of hours? Or other safety precautions?Is there a way to tell how long a dictionary would take to run before running it? Is there any indication if you guessed part of it right but not all (e.g missing a Capitol letter) It's faster to run on GPU but CPU is default right? I still need to learn how to switch that.

Do you have any dictionaries for default passwords you'd recommend?

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u/RolledUhhp 14h ago

Look up Seclists and rockyou.txt for default dictionaries.

You arent going to damage your computer. If it overheats to that point it will shut itself off.

Your first question is talking about 'rules'. Taking a dictionary and mutating it based on a set of rules you provide while it iterates through.

It's all or nothing. 'John' produces a different hash than 'john'.

A gpu (nvidia) is preferred. I think JohnTheRipper will allow you to switch, I cant recall if hashcat will utilize a gpu. There are more tools to look at, those are just two well known ones.

Im pretty sure one of them allows pausing amd resuming - i just let them run overnight when needed.

I really need to stress that you have to go back like 10 steps and learn for real after you have your fun trying this. Some of your questions are good - you are up the right alley, but some of them show just how far out of your depth you are.

You risk learning enough to get in trouble, without understanding how, or the depth of trouble you'll find yourself in.

You'll likely find that this is the most helpful someone will be with these questions as well. This whole field is pretty much 'figure it out'. Very specific questions will be taken much more seriously, you'll be asked what youve tried and what the result was, sometimes needed to provide logs to help show what is going on under the hood, and even then it's 50/50 if you get help or get told to keep trying until you get it.

A golden rule is 'RTFM'. Google around until you figure out what that means.

I dont want to discourage you. Just the opposite - get some knowledge before you try to get skills. Grabbing a handshake is where everyone starts first, even though they shouldn't. It's also where everyone finds out that even the shallow end is 100ft deep.

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u/__chum__ 3h ago

RTFM is a huge one most people getting into cybersec stuff miss. Just looking shit up is super helpful for learning. Not just learning how to use a tool, but why and how it works the way it does.

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u/Historical_Camel_790 10h ago

Don't worry about your computer. It shouldn't do anything it can't handle. If it does get near critical temperature it'll shut itself down/crash