Book Image

Hands-On Cryptography with Python

By : Samuel Bowne
Book Image

Hands-On Cryptography with Python

By: Samuel Bowne

Overview of this book

Cryptography is essential for protecting sensitive information, but it is often performed inadequately or incorrectly. Hands-On Cryptography with Python starts by showing you how to encrypt and evaluate your data. The book will then walk you through various data encryption methods,such as obfuscation, hashing, and strong encryption, and will show how you can attack cryptographic systems. You will learn how to create hashes, crack them, and will understand why they are so different from each other. In the concluding chapters, you will use three NIST-recommended systems: the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), the Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA), and the Rivest-Shamir-Adleman (RSA). By the end of this book, you will be able to deal with common errors in encryption.
Table of Contents (9 chapters)

Chapter 2. Hashing

Hashing has two main purposes: the first is to put a fingerprint on a file so you can tell whether it has been altered, and the second is to conceal passwords so you can still recognize the correct password and enable login but a person who steals the hash cannot easily recover the password from it.

In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:

  • MD5 and SHA hashes
  • Windows password hashes
  • Linux password hashes
  • Challenge 1 – cracking Windows hashes
  • Challenge 2 – cracking many-round hashes
  • Challenge 3 – cracking Linux hashes