perhaps this is why sho run and sho conf are not level 1 commands??

Brian "Sonic" Whalen
Success = Preparation + Opportunity


On Sun, 21 Oct 2001, Gareth Hinton wrote:

> The reason I asked was to see if other peoples impression was the same as
> mine. I've got the tools for the level 7 passwords, but was under the
> impression that the enable secret was almost impossible.
> I do some work for a fairly large company that had some penetration testing
> done this week by a government agency.
> One of the "hackers" told me that depending on the length and complexity of
> the password he could crack the enable password from the MD5 hash pretty
> quickly.
> The passwords we normally use for enable secrets are over 8 character
random
> alphanumeric strings, so it was taking some time.
> Not believing him entirely, I suggested that I simplify the password a
> little to a dictionary word of 7 characters. I changed it to "kittens" and
> it took his unix box around 5 seconds to go through the dictionary
> performing MD5 hash on every word, then comparing the result with the real
> hash.
>
> I was quite surprised at how quick it was. Admittedly they need to see the
> MD5 hash somehow, but I've never gone over the top to cover these up before
> now.
>
> We also (a little carelessly) got caught out with a few switches with "IP
> HTTP SERVER" on as default, so the weakness with http allowed level 15
> access to the switches. Oops.
>
> Just thought I'd bring it up anyway. I think "no ip http server" and more
> complex passwords are in order.
>
>
> Regards,
>
> Gareth
>
> ""John Neiberger""  wrote in message
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]">news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > The enable secret would not be an easy thing to crack.  The enable
> password,
> > however, can be cracked easily with a number of utilities available for
> free
> > on the internet.
> >
> > If you have hackers attacking your network who have the capability to
> crack
> > the enable secret then you have much bigger problems.
> >
> > As I recall, the enable secret displayed when you do a show run is a
> one-way
> > hash, so the original cannot be determined from the encrypted version.
> I'll
> > have to check into that.
> >
> > A good hacker would spend his time elsewhere.  Sitting at the login
prompt
> > trying to guess passwords for a few years probably isn't a wise way to
> spend
> > one's time.  Hackers tend to go for the low-hanging fruit.
> >
> > Regards,
> > John
> >
> > On Sun, 21 Oct 2001 09:13:35 -0400, Gareth Hinton wrote:
> >
> > |  Hi all,
> > |
> > |  I'm asking this as a matter of interest after something I saw this
> week:
> > |  Given the following line of config:
> > |
> > |  enable secret 5 $1$32Pc$uq7Tr7gq4v22PqEG4WFF90
> > |
> > |  What are the chances of cracking the enable secret?  (Without raising
> > |  suspicicion by having 40 million attempts on the box itself.)
> > |  Lets say the password is an 8 character string of letters only, not
> > |  necessarily a dictionary word.
> > |
> > |  What's everybody's view, could it be easily hacked or not?
> > |
> > |
> > |  Thanks,
> > |
> > |  Gaz
> > |
> > |
> > |
> > |
> > _______________________________________________________
> > http://inbox.excite.com




Message Posted at:
http://www.groupstudy.com/form/read.php?f=7&i=23708&t=23670
--------------------------------------------------
FAQ, list archives, and subscription info: http://www.groupstudy.com/list/cisco.html
Report misconduct and Nondisclosure violations to [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Reply via email to