how to HACK a password // Windows Edition

Summary by Krater

The presenter demonstrates an ethical hacking technique for extracting and cracking Windows SAM and SYSTEM registry hashes to gain remote desktop access to a computer.

From the video

Answers: How do you hack a Windows password using hash extraction and cracking?

• Windows password hashing
• SAM and SYSTEM registry hive extraction
• hashcat password cracking
• Impacket secretsdump
• Evil-WinRM remote access

What it concludes

• Windows stores password hashes in the SAM and SYSTEM registry hives.
• Impacket's secretsdump tool can extract SAM and SYSTEM hashes from registry backup files.
• Hashcat can crack NTLM password hashes using a generated dictionary wordlist.
• The extracted password hash itself can be used directly for authentication with Evil-WinRM and xfreerdp without cracking it.
• Mitigation strategies for credential dumping include disabling or restricting NTLM, enforcing password policies, and user training.