Show HN: I Dedicated 4 Years to Mastering Offline Password Cracking
Source: Hacker News
Introduction
Hi everyone,
I am Bojta Lepenye, and first of all, I want to thank the core developers of Hashcat. In my experience, it is literally the most capable tool available for offline password cracking across a wide range of use cases.
Background
I spent the last four years (from age 14 to 18) working extensively with Hashcat and the surrounding toolset. Since January 18 2022, I have documented everything I learned in my first book. During that period I continuously updated and rewrote major sections as the field evolved—for example, the introduction of GPU support for Argon2 and other memory‑hard password‑hashing algorithms, which significantly changed some cracking workflows.
Motivation
My passion for the book (or its “quick starter,” if you will) originated from an ethically conducted penetration test I performed with full authorization at my school. While initially I simply transcribed notes from YouTube videos and online blogs, I soon realized I knew very little about password security and that a 10‑ to 15‑page draft would never suffice as a professional guide.
Researching online—browsing forums, reading academic papers and white papers, watching videos, exploring blogs, inspecting presentations, and examining infographics—I could not find a single source that comprehensively covers everything needed to understand offline password cracking. This gap drove me to study password‑hashing algorithms, the security properties of hash functions, advanced cracking techniques, password analysis, attack optimization, and more.
Goal
From the very beginning I wanted to share this knowledge with the community, because having access to a resource like this would have helped me tremendously when I first started learning password cracking. I sincerely hope the work will be useful to both beginners and experienced professionals alike, and I look forward to hearing your thoughts and feedback.
Video Preview
I have put together a short video that gives a sneak peek of the book. It is hosted on Google Drive, uses the official domain, and requires no download. You can watch it here:
Availability
The book is now publicly available on Amazon and can be read for free with a Kindle Unlimited subscription:
Amazon – Show HN: I Dedicated 4 Years to Mastering Offline Password Cracking
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