Weak passwords are still a big problem in security, nowadays guessing passwords and cracking algorithms are becoming easy and brute-forcing is a major kind of attack in the boom. A general rule for making a strong password is to use a combination that is long(more than 8 letters) with capitals, symbols, and numerals.
To crack passwords a great tool to brute force is a hydra. It is a parallelized login cracker or password cracker. It was faster and flexible where adding modules is easy. Hydra usually comes preinstalled in the Kali Linux system but if in any case it is not installed or you are using any other distribution you can follow the steps in this article.
Prerequisites
Prior to setting up and utilising Hydra, make sure you have:
- A distribution of Linux (like Fedora, Ubuntu, Debian, etc.)
- Installing software packages requires root or sudo capabilities.
How to Install and Use Hydra in Linux?
Hydra is a parallelized login cracker that works with numerous protocols, such as HTTP, Telnet, FTP, SSH, and many more. It is quite effective and may be used to test the strength of passwords by conducting brute-force attacks on services. There are two main approaches to installing Hydra: using a package manager or building it from scratch.
Now, see the below steps or requirements and implement them to Install and Use Hydra in Linux.
Installing From Source Repository
sudo apt-get install hydra-gtk
This command will directly install Hydra from repositories, this will install the command-line version of Hydra with front-end GUI on your Linux system. The major drawback of using this command is that you will not be able to get the latest version, so in case you used this command or Hydra was preinstalled on your system you can remove it using the:
sudo apt-get purge hydra-gtk && sudo apt-get autoremove && sudo apt-get autoclean
Installing From Source With Newest Version
Before doing anything first we need to get our system up to date by using the command:
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
Once our system is up to date we need to install some essential things required for Hydra.
sudo apt-get -y install build-essential
sudo apt-get install git
When we are using an Ubuntu/Debian-based distribution there are some supplementary libraries needed for some optional modules, these can be installed using this command (note that some may not be available for your distribution
sudo apt-get install libssl-dev libssh-dev libidn11-dev libpcre3-dev \ libgtk2.0-dev libmysqlclient-dev libpq-dev libsvn-dev \ firebird-dev libncp-dev
It will enable all the optional modules and features except Oracle, SAP R/3, NCP, and the Apple filling protocol. Once it is done now we need to clone the repository from the git hub, and use the command:
git clone https://github.com/vanhauser-thc/thc-hydraLocate to the cloned folder directory in your terminal.
cd thc-hydraAfter locating the directory we need to configure it
./configure
Now if you see this kind of screen with the message "make", follow the instructions. Use root privileges for "make install".
Go to your home directory and use "hydra -help" to ensure hydra is installed properly and working well.
Conclusion
Hydra is a flexible tool for evaluating the safety of different login procedures. You should be able to install Hydra on your Linux system and use it to launch simple brute-force assaults by following this guide. Recall that using Hydra illegally or irresponsibly might have dire repercussions. Instead, use it wisely.
Also Read