🐈‍⬛ Hashcat – A Practical Guide to Password Auditing

Hashcat is a powerful GPU-accelerated password recovery tool used by security professionals to test the strength of passwords in authorized environments.

🧠 What Hashcat is used for:
• Auditing password hashes (e.g., from Windows, Linux, web apps)
• Testing password policies and complexity
• Identifying weak or reused credentials in simulated lab setups

🔐 Key Features:
• Supports a wide variety of hash types (MD5, SHA1, NTLM, bcrypt, etc.)
• Multiple attack modes: dictionary, brute-force, mask, hybrid, rule-based
• Highly customizable and efficient with GPU acceleration
• Works well for red teamers and defenders validating password hygiene

🎯 When to use it:
• During penetration tests (with permission)
• In password policy assessments
• For internal security audits and training exercises

Disclaimer: This guide is for educational and ethical use only. Only audit password hashes on systems you own or have explicit authorization to test.

#Hashcat #CyberSecurity #PasswordAuditing #EthicalHacking #InfoSec #EducationOnly #RedTeamTools #CredentialSecurity #GPUCracking #SecurityAssessment

⚠️ CVE-2025-24054 is now under active attack — and it only takes a single click to leak NTLM hashes from a Windows system.

CISA has added this medium-severity Windows vulnerability to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog after confirming exploitation in the wild. The flaw enables attackers to harvest NTLM credentials through specially crafted .library-ms files.

Here’s how it works:
- A user receives a malicious file — even a single click (no execution needed) can trigger NTLM hash leakage
- Attackers send these files via phishing emails, often packed in ZIP archives or delivered directly
- Opening the archive or previewing the file initiates an SMB request, leaking NTLMv2-SSP hashes
- These hashes can then be used for pass-the-hash or lateral movement attacks inside the network

Check Point reports that the vulnerability has been exploited in at least 10 campaigns so far, targeting government and private organizations in Poland, Romania, Ukraine, and Colombia.

What makes this threat more dangerous:
- NTLM is deprecated but still present in many environments
- Minimal user interaction is required — just download and extract
- It bypasses common detection tools by triggering quietly in Windows Explorer
- It's a variant of a previously exploited flaw (CVE-2024-43451)

Microsoft patched the flaw in March, but exploitation began almost immediately. Agencies under the FCEB have until May 8 to patch — but every organization should act sooner.

At @Efani we view this as another reminder that legacy protocols like NTLM are low-hanging fruit for attackers. Even medium-severity flaws can become major risks when they require near-zero user interaction.

Patch. Audit. Replace legacy auth where possible.

#CyberSecurity #NTLM #WindowsVulnerability #CVE202524054 #CredentialSecurity #EfaniSecure