Computer Security Assignment Analysing Security Software

Question

Task:
You should investigate and provide a short report on computer security assignment on the following

• THC Hydra
• John the ripper
• RainbowCrack
• OphCrack

You should experiment with the software and demonstrate that you have understood their configuration, use and utility.

Answer

1. Introduction
It is stated herein computer security assignment that a computer security system has been used to protect the information of the organization. It can prevent the attackers from using the system illegally. The hardware system of the computers can be protected with the use of sensitive equipment, but data and information of the system can be secured with advanced security system. The major threats of the computer’s information system are loss of sensitive data, important information can be destroyed by the virus, a fraudster can hack unethically into the system and it can destroy the personal information of the consumers of the organization. With the help of data encryption, inputting strong passwords can also assist to secure the information of the system. In the report, some of the security software has been analysed. Through the ethical hacking system, the software system can be checked and identified the weaknesses in the system.

2. Analysis of The Security Software
2.1 THC Hydra
Hydra is a useful software; it can be used for doing authorized cyberattacks in the system. Authorize attacks in the system can help to identify the system's security. The software performs by using "brute-force attacks" which helps to detect the correct username and passwords of the organization(GAUTAM, 2020). The software is used by ethical hackers, who will identify the weaknesses in the security system and helps to improve it with other advanced security systems. THC Hydra in the parallel computing system, where the calculations and execution process work at once. The software is built-in various operating systems like Kali-Linux and Parrot.

2.2 John the Ripper
John the Ripper is a password cracking software tool which has been used by many organizations. John the Ripper helps to crack the password in a traditional way like reversing the passcodes then shortened the passwords from the previous one(Xia et al., 2019). It helps the ethical hackers to check the system’s security. The software can help to detect encrypted passwords in the system. It uses a dictionary attack which helps to encrypt the passwords with the same format. The software also uses brute force methods and also uses character frequency tables which contain frequently uses characters at first. The software has been used in Unix, Win32, and DOS operating system.

2.3 Rainbow Crack
Rainbow Crack does not use “brute force” methods for password cracking in the organization. It uses rainbow tables, which helps to catch the output cryptographic hash functions for cracking the passwords with hashtags. It reduces the time for password cracking in the system. The attackers can also prepare a list of the previous hash codes and then compares them with the new ones. It can help to decrypt the password easily(Watanabe et al., 2019). The countermeasures of the software are Salt and Stretching. It helps the attackers efficiently crack the code. The software can be used in the Windows and Linux operating systems.

2.4 Ophcrack
Ophcrack is a password cracking software tool, which helps to do the password cracking with the help of LM hashes and through Rainbow tables. Ophcrack helps to crack passwords no longer than 14 characters. It can be used in Microsoft Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X operating system (Yisa, Baba and Olaniyi, 2016). The software can use different formats and sources to crack the hashtags of the system. The software can help to crack passwords easily. The software can help to analyse the passwords by using real-time graphs.

3. The Description of The Report Result
3.1 Analysis of Potential Threat in Computer Security
The reason of developing potential threat in computer security is vulnerability in computer protection system. Potential threat can be developed in computer security because of various reason may be physical or non-physical. Between these two types of threat non-physical threat handling is a serious issue in computer security. Physical threat is occurred due to power supply issue or theft it mainly attacks infrastructure where as in nonphysical threat is developed due to virus attack, spyware or other issues related to computer service.

Attacking rate related computer security, espionage of corporate sector are increasing day by day (Almeshekah and Spafford, 2016).Physical threat can be managed by developing security in room but in non-physical threat the security development is very essential. If the security remains at vulnerable state it will develop the incidents of cyber attacking and enhance threat for the user. Data breaching is also a result of vulnerable computer security.

3.2 Security Policies and Techniques Used by The Mentioned Security Software
Security police and techniques that are used in computer security are developed to improve computer security and provide secure service to the user. Concern computer users also develop vulnerability in computer security unknowingly(Lévesque et al., 2018) .Enhancement in computer security is necessary by implementing security software. The THC Hydra security software is mainly developed to enhance security in internal part of operating system. It is used as penetration tester and check the authentication of existing security in computer.

John the ripper is another penetrating tester that is used for windows and this software helps to detect poor password through dictionary attack and indicates the potential risk in the system. It works on two modes single crack and word crack mode.

Rainbow Crack is the most efficient method compare to others because it is developed password cracking tester and it needs very short period to crack the password and check the vulnerability through rainbow table. The OphCrack security software is another method of checking vulnerability but this software uses available rainbow table to crack password. The THC hydra and John the ripper both is time consuming as they use every plaintext to crack a password.

3.3 Results Obtained from Experiment
After using the THC Hydra, the experiment demonstrates that the security software that is used to check the vulnerability and potential threat in computer security. It is very flexible login cracker method and provide successful attacking authentication for computer security analysing. Hydra is an verified software structure that measure the internal safety of unauthorized hardware (Eldefrawy, Rattanavipanon and Tsudik, 2017) . The next experiment is done with the John the ripper security software. The obtained result shows that the security software works in different forms like dictionary attack, brute force attacking method and rainbow table. The obtaining results also demonstrate that the John the ripper use shadow file for cracking password and for developing shadow file they use user information.

Time saving Security analytic software is Rainbow Crack. Experiments are done on developing cryptanalytic information technology and reduce the time of cracking a password. Rainbow table is different from others conventional methods which uses brute force method for analysis (Avoine et al., 2017). OphCrack is open access method for analysis and it used lam manager operating system provided rainbow table to crack the password.

Security software enhances the computer security. Using this software, the authentication of computer security is analysed. Necessary steps can be taken for developing computer security on the basis of the analysed report of security software. As, this software is efficient enough, they will help the developing team of computer security. Result of implementing this software for checking vulnerability will be beneficial for computer security.

Recommended Software to Develop Computer Security and Justification
Computer security is essential for the user as it contains various essential information otherwise it will develop the incidents of cyber-attack, data breaching. Integration of IoT things also develop the potential threat for the user or the organization (Walker-Roberts et al., 2020).IoT things are transfer through network which also need security (Sadeeq et al., 2018).To remove these threat development in computer security is essential and for analysing this safety standard security software are very affective. Among all the discussed security software Rainbow Crack is the most affective software.

Rainbow Crack is the fast-performing analysing software that is able to crack software within a short period. Others security software needs plaintext for possess the analysis but Rainbow Crack do this analysis through rainbow table. When user changes their password it never saves to online then the other process is insufficient for this plaintext issue. Rainbow table is most affective because this software can combine with others software to make them more efficient for security analysis. Ophcrack method also use rainbow table to enhance their effectiveness in analysing security.

Rainbow crack method possess the whole process within a short period because in John the ripper method uses shadow file and others use plaintext to possess the process but rainbow crack only uses rainbow table. It is the most flexible and dependent method for analysing computer security and time shaving method that any user can use to check the vulnerability in computer security.

5. Conclusion
Computer security is the most important aspect to secure any organization’s system. The password verifications and encryption methods can be beneficial for secure the system software. In the current report some software tools like Hydra, John the Ripper, Ophcrack, and Rainbow Crack have been discussed. Authorized hacking can help the organization to detect vulnerabilities in the system. The reuse of passwords and dictionary methods can be used to crack the password easily. The software tools used as penetration testers for the system. It can detect the weaknesses in the system and with the help of innovative ideas can enhance the system of the organization. The security software can analyse the hash codes and helps to crack the codes efficiently.

6. Reference
Almeshekah, M. H. and Spafford, E. H. (2016) ‘Cyber security deception’, in Cyber deception. Springer, pp. 23–50.

Avoine, G., Carpent, X., Kordy, B. and Tardif, F., 2017, July. How to Handle Rainbow Tables with External Memory. In Australasian Conference on Information Security and Privacy (pp. 306-323). Springer, Cham.

Eldefrawy, K., Rattanavipanon, N. and Tsudik, G. (2017) ‘HYDRA: hybrid design for remote attestation (using a formally verified microkernel)’, in Proceedings of the 10th ACM Conference on Security and Privacy in wireless and Mobile Networks, pp. 99–110.

GAUTAM, K. K. S. (2020) ‘Information Gathering Techniques’, pp. 1–18.

Lévesque, F.L., Chiasson, S., Somayaji, A. and Fernandez, J.M., 2018. Technological and human factors of malware attacks: A computer security clinical trial approach. ACM Transactions on Privacy and Security (TOPS), 21(4), pp.1-30.

Sadeeq, M.A., Zeebaree, S.R., Qashi, R., Ahmed, S.H. and Jacksi, K., 2018, October. Internet of Things security: a survey. In 2018 International Conference on Advanced Science and Engineering (ICOASE) (pp. 162-166). IEEE.

Walker-Roberts, S., Hammoudeh, M., Aldabbas, O., Aydin, M. and Dehghantanha, A., 2020. Threats on the horizon: Understanding security threats in the era of cyber-physical systems. The Journal of Supercomputing, 76(4), pp.2643-2664.

Watanabe, Y., Suzuki, H., Naito, K. and Watanabe, A., 2019, October. Proposal for User Authentication Method Combining Random Number and Password. In 2019 IEEE 8th Global Conference on Consumer Electronics (GCCE) (pp. 1129-1130). IEEE.

Xia, Z., Yi, P., Liu, Y., Jiang, B., Wang, W. and Zhu, T., 2019. GENPass: a multi-source deep learning model for password guessing. IEEE Transactions on Multimedia, 22(5), pp.1323-1332.

Yisa, V., Baba, M. and Olaniyi, E. (2016) ‘A review of top open source password cracking tools’, in Proc. of the International Conference on Information and Communication Technology and its Applications (ICTA), pp. 134–138.