Cracking Active Directory Passwords or 'How to Cook AD Crack'

It is too early to write the obituary on passwords, and they are still the most prevalent form of authentication for most corporations. You may be using Multi-Factor Authentication for some users, but there's still a password in use somewhere. Many end-users and IT Pros does not understand the art of creating and maintaining good passwords, and most organizations utilize Active Directory, which stores unsalted passwords using a weak hashing algorithm, further weakening their security. This paper discusses several methods to acquire the password hashes from Active Directory, how to use them in Pass the Hash attacks, and how to crack them, revealing the clear text passwords they represent. It ends with a short discussion on how to report on the password security of the organization tested.