Category: Offensive Security

This post is the second of three posts that I have planned in a little mini-series. Last time, we looked at What are Cryptographic Hashes? and this time, we’re going to talk about how to identify cryptographic hashes that you might find in the wild.

In offensive security and during security audits, you’ll often encounter cryptographic hashes. These may be part of password dumps, logs, malware signatures, or other files. However, not all hashes are labeled clearly, and determining the type of hash used is essential for further analysis, especially when cracking or reversing it. Let’s dive into how you can identify cryptographic hashes in the wild and the tools that make the process easier.

This is important for a few reasons, but from an Offensive Security perspective, the biggest reason is that you often need to identify the type of hash you’re dealing with is to be able to crack it correctly. If you’re just using a huge, pre-computed rainbow table like I assume CrackStation uses, identifying them is less important because it just finds them as they are and returns the stored initial plain text value that was used to make the digest. In the case of other tools that you want to run specific wordlists against where you “hash on demand”, you have to know what you’re trying for before you start. So how do we do it?

Over time, you may develop some kind of sixth sense about it and be able to look at them and be pretty sure what you’re seeing. But, if you’re new or want to know the process that is going on behind the scenes, here’s a decision process. First, look at the length of the hash. Here are some lengths of some very popular hash types you’re likely to encounter. Length alone doesn’t always give you a definitive answer, but it helps rule out many possibilities.

• MD5: 32 hexadecimal characters (128 bits).
• SHA-1: 40 hexadecimal characters (160 bits).
• SHA-256: 64 hexadecimal characters (256 bits).
• SHA-512: 128 hexadecimal characters (512 bits).
• bcrypt: Typically around 60 characters (includes a salt).

Next thing you want to do is look for special formatting of the hash itself that might be unique to the hash’s “signature”.

• bcrypt hashes often start with $2a$, $2b$, or $2y$.
• MD5 is typically a straightforward 32-character hexadecimal string.
• NTLM (used in Windows environments) often has a 32-character hexadecimal format similar to MD5 but is distinct in purpose.

The next thing you want to do (honestly, maybe this should kind of be step 0 even) is consider the context of where the hash came from. It isn’t super likely that you just “found a hash on the ground”, you usually have some context with it and that context can give us some hints.

• Password Databases: If you’re analyzing a password database, it’s common to find hashes like bcrypt, PBKDF2, or even older ones like MD5.
• File Integrity Checks: If the hash is related to file integrity checks (e.g., software downloads), SHA-256 or SHA-512 is often used.
• Certificates and Signatures: Digital certificates or signatures may use SHA-256 or SHA-1, although SHA-1 has been largely deprecated.

Another thing to do is to look for evidence and distinctive markers at specific points in the hash. Some hash functions, particularly those used for passwords (like bcrypt, PBKDF2, and Argon2), employ salting and iterations to increase security. The salt is a random value added to the input to ensure the same passwords don’t produce identical hashes. Hashes with salts often have longer lengths and may include markers or delimiters in the format, like the way you might find a Bcrypt hash that starts with ‘$2a$10$…’ where ’10’ is the cost factor.

So if you found a hash like $2y$12$EXRkfkdmXn2gzds2SSituJWMqp3hPFO4lH/vqFhD8aJL.lfwBby4a during a penetration test and you figure out that $2y$ indicates the algorithm is bcrypt and 12 indicates the number of iterations (also called the cost factor). You can then use a tool like John the Ripper or Hashcat with your favorite wordlists, specifying bcrypt as the algorithm.

The next step (maybe it might be your first step) is to try using some tools to help you. The truth is that these tools apply some of the heuristics that I’ve already outlined (and many more that I haven’t) in order to figure out what you’re dealing with. One of the most popular is called hashID (which replaced hash-identifier), a Python tool that you can install with pip and then call from the command line. Here is an example of me using it to identify some hashes.

$ hashid '5d41402abc4b2a76b9719d911017c592'
Analyzing '5d41402abc4b2a76b9719d911017c592'
[+] MD2
[+] MD5
[+] MD4
[+] Double MD5
[+] LM
[+] RIPEMD-128
[+] Haval-128
[+] Tiger-128
[+] Skein-256(128)
[+] Skein-512(128)
[+] Lotus Notes/Domino 5
[+] Skype
[+] Snefru-128
[+] NTLM
[+] Domain Cached Credentials
[+] Domain Cached Credentials 2
[+] DNSSEC(NSEC3)
[+] RAdmin v2.x

$ hashid '$2y$12$EXRkfkdmXn2gzds2SSituJWMqp3hPFO4lH/vqFhD8aJL.lfwBby4a'
Analyzing '$2y$12$EXRkfkdmXn2gzds2SSituJWMqp3hPFO4lH/vqFhD8aJL.lfwBby4a'
[+] Blowfish(OpenBSD)
[+] Woltlab Burning Board 4.x
[+] bcrypt

You’ll notice that sometimes, you get a LOT of possible results. That’s why I personally put the tools a little lower on the list. You will want to use context to try to figure out which of those suggestions is most likely. From there, you may have to try a few different times to crack the hash, but you should have some kind of logic to the order. Consider the context, the technology stack, when it was written, what you know about the development team, etc. You may see some people suggest tools like OnlineHashCrack (use the menu to go to Free Tools, then Hash Identification). The direct link is here, but that can change. Unless you can’t install hashID on your system for some reason, I’d just use hashID. Online Hash Crack literally seems to be using something like hash-identifier under the hood, as the results are the very similar.

Hash Identifier

+-$ hash-identifier 5d41402abc4b2a76b9719d911017c592
   #########################################################################
   #     __  __                     __           ______    _____           #
   #    /\ \/\ \                   /\ \         /\__  _\  /\  _ `\         #
   #    \ \ \_\ \     __      ____ \ \ \___     \/_/\ \/  \ \ \/\ \        #
   #     \ \  _  \  /'__`\   / ,__\ \ \  _ `\      \ \ \   \ \ \ \ \       #
   #      \ \ \ \ \/\ \_\ \_/\__, `\ \ \ \ \ \      \_\ \__ \ \ \_\ \      #
   #       \ \_\ \_\ \___ \_\/\____/  \ \_\ \_\     /\_____\ \ \____/      #
   #        \/_/\/_/\/__/\/_/\/___/    \/_/\/_/     \/_____/  \/___/  v1.2 #
   #                                                             By Zion3R #
   #                                                    www.Blackploit.com #
   #                                                   Root@Blackploit.com #
   #########################################################################
--------------------------------------------------

Possible Hashs:
[+] MD5
[+] Domain Cached Credentials - MD4(MD4(($pass)).(strtolower($username)))

Least Possible Hashs:
[+] RAdmin v2.x
[+] NTLM
[+] MD4
[+] MD2
[+] MD5(HMAC)
[+] MD4(HMAC)
[+] MD2(HMAC)
[+] MD5(HMAC(WordPress))
[+] Haval-128
[+] Haval-128(HMAC)
[+] RipeMD-128
[+] RipeMD-128(HMAC)
[+] SNEFRU-128
[+] SNEFRU-128(HMAC)
[+] Tiger-128
[+] Tiger-128(HMAC)
[+] md5($pass.$salt)
[+] md5($salt.$pass)
[+] md5($salt.$pass.$salt)
[+] md5($salt.$pass.$username)
[+] md5($salt.md5($pass))
[+] md5($salt.md5($pass))
[+] md5($salt.md5($pass.$salt))
[+] md5($salt.md5($pass.$salt))
[+] md5($salt.md5($salt.$pass))
[+] md5($salt.md5(md5($pass).$salt))
[+] md5($username.0.$pass)
[+] md5($username.LF.$pass)
[+] md5($username.md5($pass).$salt)
[+] md5(md5($pass))
[+] md5(md5($pass).$salt)
[+] md5(md5($pass).md5($salt))
[+] md5(md5($salt).$pass)
[+] md5(md5($salt).md5($pass))
[+] md5(md5($username.$pass).$salt)
[+] md5(md5(md5($pass)))
[+] md5(md5(md5(md5($pass))))
[+] md5(md5(md5(md5(md5($pass)))))
[+] md5(sha1($pass))
[+] md5(sha1(md5($pass)))
[+] md5(sha1(md5(sha1($pass))))
[+] md5(strtoupper(md5($pass)))
--------------------------------------------------

OnlineHashCrack

Input: 5d41402abc4b2a76b9719d911017c592

Results: 
Your hash may be one of the following:
- MD2
- MD5
- MD4
- Double MD5
- LM
- RIPEMD-128
- Haval-128
- Tiger-128
- Skein-256(128)
- Skein-512(128)
- Lotus Notes/Domino 5
- Skype
- ZipMonster
- PrestaShop
- md5(md5(md5($pass)))
- md5(strtoupper(md5($pass)))
- md5(sha1($pass))
- md5($pass.$salt)
- md5($salt.$pass)
- md5(unicode($pass).$salt)
- md5($salt.unicode($pass))
- HMAC-MD5 (key = $pass)
- HMAC-MD5 (key = $salt)
- md5(md5($salt).$pass)
- md5($salt.md5($pass))
- md5($pass.md5($salt))
- md5($salt.$pass.$salt)
- md5(md5($pass).md5($salt))
- md5($salt.md5($salt.$pass))
- md5($salt.md5($pass.$salt))
- md5($username.0.$pass)
- Snefru-128
- NTLM
- Domain Cached Credentials
- Domain Cached Credentials 2
- DNSSEC(NSEC3)
- RAdmin v2.x
- Cisco Type 7

It is possible that some tools that you use to crack the hashes have some built-in identifiers (like John the Ripper), but they don’t work independently.

Identifying cryptographic hashes is a critical skill during security audits or penetration tests. With so many different algorithms in use, the ability to quickly pinpoint the hash type allows you to assess security, crack passwords, and verify data integrity. By leveraging online tools, command-line utilities like hashID, and your understanding of hash lengths and formats, you can efficiently identify the most commonly used hashes.

In the next post, we’ll explore how to crack these hashes, using both brute force and other techniques.

This post is the first of three posts that I have planned in a little mini-series. I want to post about What are Cryptographic Hashes?, then Identifying Hashes, and finally Cracking Hashes.

So, what is a Cryptographic Hash? At its core, a cryptographic hash function is a mathematical algorithm that takes an input and returns a fixed-size string of characters, which is typically a hexadecimal number. The output is called a hash or digest. Cryptographic hash functions are designed to be secure and resistant to tampering, which makes them highly useful in a variety of security-related contexts. The key features of cryptographic hashes are:

1. Deterministic: The same input will always produce the same hash.
2. Fixed Length: Regardless of the size of the input, the hash produced will always be of a fixed size (e.g., SHA-256 always produces a 256-bit hash).
3. Efficient: Computing the hash for any input is relatively fast.
4. Pre-image Resistance: It should be computationally infeasible to reverse the process and determine the original input from the hash.
5. Collision Resistance: Two different inputs should not produce the same hash.
6. Avalanche Effect: Even a small change to the input should drastically change the output hash.

That Avalanche Effect part is actually really important and easier to understand with a demonstration. If a hashing of similar words resulted in similar hashes, you could actually figure out the original message very easily as you got closer and closer. Instead, abcd, abcdd, abcdD, and abcde actually hash to wildly different SHA256 Hashes, for example. Pretty smart, I think.

$ echo "abcd" | sha256sum
fc4b5fd6816f75a7c81fc8eaa9499d6a299bd803397166e8c4cf9280b801d62c

$ echo "abcdd" | sha256sum
2fc0920b01e12a239cac49f999c641dafaa841da88428c08632ec1fa9860920f

$ echo "abcdD" | sha256sum
f71367ae3183ad102b186748aba1a2132c73168b79a3e2612199f2d74ae9d9b0

$ echo "abcde" | sha256sum
0283da60063abfb3a87f1aed845d17fe2d9ba8c780b478dc4ae048f5ee97a6d5

Where do we use Cryptographic Hashes? Well, I’m writing about this under the banner of Offensive Security, so some logical guesses could be made. One thing they are used for is for storing passwords. Instead of storing the passwords directly in a database or even storing an encrypted version that can be decrypted, it is a good practice to store a Cryptographic Hash. Then when someone tries to log in, you hash the input and then compare the hashes. That way, the passwords are harder to determine from the hash alone. Another use is for data integrity. If a hash is taken of a file or a message and that hash is published, you can confirm that you have the exact same file or message by calculating the hash yourself and comparing.

What are the dangers here? Why are there so many kinds of hashes? Well – like a lot of things – this is actually a hard problem. If the hash algorithm isn’t very good, it could have collisions. That means two or more messages hash to the same value, so if apple and orange both hash to ABCDEF and ABCDEF is stored in the database as the password hash, then providing either a password of apple or orange at login would let you in. That’s not great. Also, if it is possible for multiple inputs to have the same output, then a file with a hash of AAABBBCCC is published, but someone also makes a version of a file full of viruses that also hashes out to AAABBBCCC, then we’ve lost trust in the process.

Here are just four examples of hash algorithms that had been trusted, but aren’t anymore.

MD4 (Message Digest Algorithm 4)
Discovered Collisions: Yes (1995)
Details: MD4 is an earlier version of MD5 and was found to be insecure in the mid-1990s. Collisions were discovered in MD4 as early as 1995, and since then, the hash function has been considered broken and insecure. MD4 was eventually replaced by more secure algorithms like SHA and MD5, though MD5 also suffered from its own weaknesses.
Examples: MD4 is largely obsolete but might still be found in legacy systems.

MD5 (Message Digest Algorithm 5)
Discovered Collisions: Yes (2004)
Details: MD5 is one of the most famous cryptographic hash functions with widely known collisions. It produces a 128-bit hash value. In 2004, researchers demonstrated a practical method to find collisions in MD5. Since then, the hash function has been considered broken and unsuitable for security purposes like digital signatures and certificates.
Examples: In 2008, an attack was demonstrated that allowed attackers to create a rogue Certificate Authority (CA) certificate, which undermined the trust model of SSL certificates.

SHA-0 (Secure Hash Algorithm 0)
Discovered Collisions: Yes (2004)
Details: SHA-0 is the predecessor of SHA-1 and was withdrawn from use due to its vulnerability to collisions. Researchers found theoretical weaknesses, and in 2004, they were able to demonstrate actual collisions in the function. As a result, SHA-0 was deprecated early in its life.
Examples: SHA-0 is no longer used in any modern cryptographic system due to these vulnerabilities.

SHA-1 (Secure Hash Algorithm 1)
Discovered Collisions: Yes (2017)
Details: SHA-1, which produces a 160-bit hash value, was long considered secure but began to show theoretical weaknesses in the early 2000s. In 2017, Google and the CWI Institute in Amsterdam successfully generated a practical collision using the “SHAttered” attack. This discovery showed that SHA-1 was vulnerable to collision attacks and should no longer be used in critical security applications.
Examples: SHA-1 has been deprecated for use in SSL certificates, and major browsers no longer accept SHA-1-signed certificates.

Understanding these foundational concepts is critical as we move forward in our offensive security series. In our next post, we will dive into how to identify a hash you find in the wild—whether it’s from a password dump, a malware sample, or part of an intercepted communication.