There are a few things to consider when hacking passwords on a Windows 98-XP machine. First off, don’t break the law or get your self fired, sued, or thrown in jail. None of those are situations which I would wish on anyone -well, almost anyone. There are a few tools out there for the task of getting past passwords on a Windows computer. From the simple “ESC” key on Windows 98 computers, to the “Brute-force” attack on others. One tool I like is made by the OXID.IT Team. Called “Cain and Able”. Cain allows you to grab the “Protected Storage” and pull stored passwords. For example...Internet Explorer Form Autocompletes and POP account passwords. Cain also has the ability to perform dictionary, brute-force, and cryptanalysis attacks on NTLM. Just by dumping the LSA secrets you can often find login and password info for dialup and PPPoE accounts. NOTE: passwords are separated by periods/dots. For example... p.a.s.s.w.o.r.d.

You should also check out the Ophcrack project. Another fun tool allows you to kill an NT based (NT, Win2K, WinXP) user account password and replace it with your own or blank it out. This is obtrusive and would be obvious to the party whom operates the account. In other words you’d get caught, so don’t think you’d be getting away with anything. If you’re still interested check out this Linux based boot CD: cd050303.zip

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