Introduction to hydra
Hydra is an extremely quick network logon cracker that works with a wide range of services. It is a parallelized login cracker that can attack several protocols. It is also incredibly fast and adaptable, and adding new modules is simple. With the use of this tool, researchers and security experts may demonstrate how simple it would be to obtain unauthorized remote access to a system.
What is Hydra?
Hydra is a fast and flexible password-cracking tool commonly used in penetration testing and ethical hacking. It specializes in brute-force and dictionary attacks to attempt logging into services and protocols by trying multiple username and password combinations.
Key Features of Hydra:
- Multi-Protocol Support: Hydra supports a wide range of network protocols, including but not limited to:
- SSH
- FTP
- HTTP/HTTPS (web forms)
- RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol)
- SMB (Windows shares)
- MySQL/PostgreSQL databases
- POP3/IMAP (Email services)
- Telnet
- Brute-Force and Dictionary Attacks: Hydra attempts to guess usernames and passwords either by brute-force (systematically trying all combinations) or by using wordlists (dictionaries of possible usernames and passwords).
- Parallel Processing: Hydra can launch multiple attacks simultaneously (using multiple threads), making it very fast compared to single-threaded brute-force tools.
- Customizable Requests: When attacking web applications, Hydra can be configured to customize login forms, HTTP methods, and other headers to suit the application being tested.
Use Cases for Hydra:
- Penetration Testing: Ethical hackers use Hydra to test the strength of authentication mechanisms and identify weak passwords on services such as SSH, FTP, RDP, and more.
- Security Auditing: IT professionals use Hydra to ensure their systems are protected against password-based attacks by simulating these types of threats.
- Red Team Operations: In red team engagements, Hydra is used to gain unauthorized access to accounts by trying common or guessed credentials.
How to use Hydra
Hydra is a popular and powerful tool used for brute-force password attacks on various protocols and services. It’s commonly used by ethical hackers and penetration testers to assess the security of authentication mechanisms. Here’s a basic guide to using Hydra:
To guess Password for specific username
If you have the right username but cannot remember the password, you can utilize a list of passwords and brute force the host’s ftp service passwords.
hydra -L /root/pass.list -P /root/pass.list192.168.177.130 ftp
Here -l option is for username -P for password lists and host ip address for ftp service.
To guess username for specific password
You might know what username to use, but your password might not be working. Let’s say you have a password for a particular FTP account. To identify the correct one, you can brute force the field using wordlists of valid usernames. The -p option allows you to specify a password, while the -L option allows you to specify user wordlists.
hydra -L user.1.txt -P pass.txt 192.168.177.130 ftp
Verbose and Debug Mode
Verbose mode, which displays the login+pass combination for each try, is enabled with the -V option. The brute force assault in this case involved creating combinations of each login and password, and verbose mode displayed every try. I had two wordlists, user.1.txt and pass.txt.
hydra -L user.1.txt -P pass.txt 192.168.177.130 ftp -V
The -d option is now used to switch on debug mode. It displays every aspect of the attack, including the wait time, conwait, socket, PID, and RECV.
hydra -L user.1.txt -P pass.txt 192.168.177.130 ftp -d
-d option enabled debug mode which, as shown displayed complete detail of the attack.
NULL/Same as Login or Reverse login Attempt
With the -e option, Hydra will continue its brute-forcing of three more passwords. The symbols [n], [s], and [r] stand for null, same, and reverse, respectively, of the username. The screenshot illustrates how, while brute-forcing the password field, the null option is checked first, followed by the same choice, and finally the opposite. and after that the list I’ve supplied.
hydra -L user.1.txt -P pass.txt 192.168.177.130 ftp -V -e nsr
Concurrent Testing on Multiple Logins
Hydra will perform concurrent brute force testing if you specify the number when using the -t option to test multiple logins at once.
hydra -L user.1.txt -P pass.txt 192.168.177.130 ftp -t 2 -V
Three attempts are made concurrently, as the screenshot illustrates, and three passwords are checked with user ignite at host 192.168.1.141. As you can see, the kid changes 0, 1, 2, which indicates that it is making three attempts concurrently and printing three of them at the same time.
HTTP Login Form Brute Force
Simple web-based login forms that require username and password variables via GET or POST requests can be brute-forced with the help of the hydra form. I utilized the login page of the dvwa (damn vulnerable web application) for testing. Since I’m supplying some data, this page employs the POST method.
hydra -L user.1.txt -P user.txt 192.168.177.130 http-post form “/dvwa/login.php:username=^USER^&password=^PASS^&Login=Login:Login failed”
