H Y D R A
(c) 2001-2023 by van Hauser / THC
<[email protected]> https://github.com/vanhauser-thc/thc-hydra
Many modules were written by David (dot) Maciejak @ gmail (dot) com
BFG code by Jan Dlabal <[email protected]>
Licensed under AGPLv3 (see LICENSE file)
Please do not use in military or secret service organizations,
or for illegal purposes.
(This is the wish of the author and non-binding. Many people working
in these organizations do not care for laws and ethics anyway.
You are not one of the "good" ones if you ignore this.)
NOTE: No, this is not meant to be a markdown doc! old school!
Hydra in the most current GitHub state can be directly downloaded via Docker:
docker pull vanhauser/hydra
INTRODUCTION
Number one of the biggest security holes are passwords, as every password
security study shows.
This tool is a proof-of-concept code to give researchers and security
consultants the possibility of showing how easy it would be to gain unauthorized
access from a remote to a system.
THIS TOOL IS FOR LEGAL PURPOSES ONLY!
There are already several login hacker tools available; however, none of them
support more than one protocol to attack or support parallelized
connects.
It was tested to compile cleanly on Linux, Windows/Cygwin, Solaris,
FreeBSD/OpenBSD, QNX (Blackberry 10), and MacOS.
Currently, this tool supports the following protocols:
Asterisk, AFP, Cisco AAA, Cisco auth, Cisco enable, CVS, Firebird, FTP,
HTTP-FORM-GET, HTTP-FORM-POST, HTTP-GET, HTTP-HEAD, HTTP-POST, HTTP-PROXY,
HTTPS-FORM-GET, HTTPS-FORM-POST, HTTPS-GET, HTTPS-HEAD, HTTPS-POST,
HTTP-Proxy, ICQ, IMAP, IRC, LDAP, MEMCACHED, MONGODB, MS-SQL, MYSQL, NCP, NNTP, Oracle Listener,
Oracle SID, Oracle, PC-Anywhere, PCNFS, POP3, POSTGRES, Radmin, RDP, Rexec, Rlogin,
Rsh, RTSP, SAP/R3, SIP, SMB, SMTP, SMTP Enum, SNMP v1+v2+v3, SOCKS5,
SSH (v1 and v2), SSHKEY, Subversion, Teamspeak (TS2), Telnet, VMware-Auth,
VNC and XMPP.
However, the module engine for new services is very easy, so it won't take a
long time until even more services are supported.
Your help in writing, enhancing, or fixing modules is highly appreciated!! :-)
WHERE TO GET
You can always find the newest release/production version of Hydra at its
project page at https://github.com/vanhauser-thc/thc-hydra/releases
If you are interested in the current development state, the public development
repository is on GitHub:
svn co https://github.com/vanhauser-thc/thc-hydra
or
git clone https://github.com/vanhauser-thc/thc-hydra
Use the development version at your own risk. It contains new features and
new bugs. Things might not work!
Alternatively (and easier), you can pull it as a Docker container:
docker pull vanhauser/hydra
HOW TO COMPILE
To configure, compile, and install Hydra, just type:
./configure
make
make install
If you want the SSH module, you have to set up libssh (not libssh2!) on your
system, get it from https://www.libssh.org, for ssh v1 support you also need
to add the "-DWITH_SSH1=On" option in the cmake command line.
IMPORTANT: If you compile on macOS, you must do this - do not install libssh via Homebrew.
If you use Ubuntu/Debian, this will install the supplementary libraries needed
for a few optional modules (note that some might not be available on your distribution):
apt-get install libssl-dev libssh-dev libidn11-dev libpcre3-dev \
libgtk-3-dev libmysqlclient-dev libpq-dev libsvn-dev \
firebird-dev libmemcached-dev libgpg-error-dev \
libgcrypt11-dev libgcrypt20-dev freetds-dev
This enables all optional modules and features except for Oracle,
SAP R/3, NCP, and the Apple filing protocol - which you will need to download and
install from the vendor's websites.
For all other Linux derivatives and BSD-based systems, use the system
software installer and look for similarly named libraries, like in the
command above. In all other cases, you have to download all source libraries
and compile them manually.
- All UNIX platforms (Linux, *BSD, Solaris, etc.)
- MacOS (basically a BSD clone)
- Windows with Cygwin (both IPv4 and IPv6)
- Mobile systems based on Linux, MacOS, or QNX (e.g. Android, iPhone, Blackberry 10, Zaurus, iPaq)
HOW TO USE
If you just enter hydra, you will see a short summary of the important
options available.
Type ./hydra -h to see all available command line options.
Note that NO login/password file is included. Generate them yourself.
A default password list is, however, present; use "dpl4hydra.sh" to generate
a list.
For Linux users, a GTK GUI is available; try ./xhydra
For the command line usage, the syntax is as follows:
For attacking one target or a network, you can use the new "://" style:
hydra [some command line options] PROTOCOL://TARGET:PORT/MODULE-OPTIONS
The old mode can be used for these, too, and additionally, if you want to
specify your targets from a text file; you must use this one:
hydra [some command line options] [-s PORT] TARGET PROTOCOL [MODULE-OPTIONS]
Via the command line options, you specify which logins to try, which passwords,
if SSL should be used, how many parallel tasks should be used for attacking, etc.
PROTOCOL is the protocol you want to use for attacking, e.g., ftp, SMTP,
http-get or many others are available
TARGET is the target you want to attack
MODULE-OPTIONS are optional values that are special per PROTOCOL module
FIRST - select your target
You have three options on how to specify the target you want to attack:
- A single target on the command line: just put the IP or DNS address in
- A network range on the command line: CIDR specification like "192.168.0.0/24"
- A list of hosts in a text file: one line per entry (see below)
SECOND - select your protocol
Try to avoid telnet, as it is unreliable for detecting a correct or false login attempt.
Use a port scanner to see which protocols are enabled on the target.
THIRD - check if the module has optional parameters
hydra -U PROTOCOL
e.g. hydra -U smtp
FOURTH - the destination port
This is optional; if no port is supplied, the default common port for the
PROTOCOL is used.
If you specify SSL to use ("-S" option), the SSL common port is used by default.
If you use "://" notation, you must use "[" "]" brackets if you want to supply
IPv6 addresses or CIDR ("192.168.0.0/24") notations to attack:
hydra [some command line options] ftp://[192.168.0.0/24]/
hydra [some command line options] -6 smtps://[2001:db8::1]/NTLM
Note that everything Hydra does is IPv4 only!
If you want to attack IPv6 addresses, you must add the "-6" command line option.
All attacks are then IPv6 only!
If you want to supply your targets via a text file, you can not use the ://
notation, but use the old style and just supply the protocol (and module options):
hydra [some command line options] -M targets.txt ftp
You can also supply the port for each target entry by adding ":" after a
target entry in the file, e.g.:
foo.bar.com
target.com:21
unusual.port.com:2121
default.used.here.com
127.0.0.1
127.0.0.1:2121
Note that if you want to attach IPv6 targets, you must supply the -6 option
and must put IPv6 addresses in brackets in the file(!) like this:
foo.bar.com
target.com:21
[fe80::1%eth0]
[2001::1]
[2002::2]:8080
[2a01:24a:133:0:00:123:ff:1a]
LOGINS AND PASSWORDS
You have many options on how to attack with logins and passwords
With -l for login and -p for password, you tell Hydra that this is the only
login and/or password to try.
With -L for logins and -P for passwords, you supply text files with entries.
e.g.:
hydra -l admin -p password ftp://localhost/
hydra -L default_logins.txt -p test ftp://localhost/
hydra -l admin -P common_passwords.txt ftp://localhost/
hydra -L logins.txt -P passwords.txt ftp://localhost/
Additionally, you can try passwords based on the login via the "-e" option.
The "-e" option has three parameters:
s - try the login as password
n - try an empty password
r - reverse the login and try it as a password
If you want to, e.g., try "try login as password and "empty password", you
specify "-e sn" on the command line.
But there are two more modes for trying passwords than -p/-P:
You can use a text file where a login and password pair is separated by a colon,
e.g.:
admin:password
test:test
foo:bar
This is a common default account style listing that is also generated by the
dpl4hydra.sh default account file generator supplied with Hydra.
You use such a text file with the -C option - note that in this mode you
can not use -l/-L/-p/-P options (-e nsr however you can).
Example:
hydra -C default_accounts.txt ftp://localhost/
And finally, there is a brute-force mode with the -x option (which you can not
use with -p/-P/-C):
-x minimum_length:maximum_length:charset
The charset definition is a for lowercase letters, A for uppercase letters,
1 for numbers and for anything else, what you supply is their real representation.
Examples:
-x 1:3:a generate passwords from length 1 to 3 with all lowercase letters
-x 2:5:/ generate passwords from length 2 to 5 containing only slashes
-x 5:8:A1 generate passwords from length 5 to 8 with uppercase and numbers
-x '3:3:aA1&~#\\ "\'<{([-|_^@)]=}>$%*?./§,;:!`' -v generates length 3 passwords with all 95 characters, and verbose.
Example:
hydra -l ftp -x 3:3:a ftp://localhost/
SPECIAL OPTIONS FOR MODULES
Via the third command line parameter (TARGET SERVICE OPTIONAL) or the -m
command line option, you can pass one option to a module.
Many modules use this; a few require it!
To see the special option of a module, type:
hydra -U
e.g.
./hydra -U http-post-form
The special options can be passed via the -m parameter, as 3rd command line
option or in the service://target/option format.
Examples (they are all equal):
./hydra -l test -p test -m PLAIN 127.0.0.1 imap
./hydra -l test -p test 127.0.0.1 imap PLAIN
./hydra -l test -p test imap://127.0.0.1/PLAIN
RESTORING AN ABORTED/CRASHED SESSION
When Hydra is aborted with Control-C, killed, or crashes, it leaves a
"hydra.restore" file behind, which contains all necessary information to
restore the session. This session file is written every 5 minutes.
NOTE: the hydra.restore file can NOT be copied to a different platform (e.g.
from little endian to big endian, or from Solaris to AIX)
HOW TO SCAN/CRACK OVER A PROXY
The environment variable HYDRA_PROXY_HTTP defines the web proxy (this works
just for the HTTP services!).
The following syntax is valid:
HYDRA_PROXY_HTTP="http://123.45.67.89:8080/"
HYDRA_PROXY_HTTP="http://login:[email protected]:8080/"
HYDRA_PROXY_HTTP="proxylist.txt"
The last example is a text file containing up to 64 proxies (in the same
format definition as the other examples).
For all other services, use the HYDRA_PROXY variable to scan/crack.
It uses the same syntax. eg:
HYDRA_PROXY=[connect|socks4|socks5]://[login:password@]proxy_addr:proxy_port
for example:
HYDRA_PROXY=connect://proxy.anonymizer.com:8000
HYDRA_PROXY=socks4://auth:[email protected]:1080
HYDRA_PROXY=socksproxylist.txt
ADDITIONAL HINTS
- Sort your password files by likelihood and use the -u option to find
passwords much faster!
- uniq your dictionary files! This can save you a lot of time :-)
cat words.txt | sort | uniq > dictionary.txt
- If you know that the target is using a password policy (allowing users
only to choose a password with a minimum length of 6, containing at least one
letter and one number, etc. use the tool pw-inspector, which comes along
with the hydra package, to reduce the password list:
cat dictionary.txt | pw-inspector -m 6 -c 2 -n > passlist.txt
RESULTS OUTPUT
The results are output to stdio along with the other information. Via the -o
command line option, the results can also be written to a file. Using -b,
the format of the output can be specified. Currently, these are supported:
text - plain text formatjsonv1 - JSON data using version 1.x of the schema (defined below).json - JSON data using the latest version of the schema; currently, there
is only version 1.
If using JSON output, the results file may not be valid JSON if there are
serious errors in booting Hydra.
JSON Schema
Here is an example of the JSON output. Notes on some of the fields:
errormessages - an array of zero or more strings that are normally printed
to stderr at the end of Hydra's run. The text is very free-form.success - indication if Hydra ran correctly without error (NOT if
passwords were detected). This parameter is either the JSON value true
or false depending on completion.quantityfound - How many username+password combinations were discovered.jsonoutputversion - Version of the schema, 1.00, 1.01, 1.11, 2.00,
2.03, etc. Hydra will make the second tuple of the version to always be two
digits to make it easier for downstream processors (as opposed to v1.1 vs
v1.10). The minor-level versions are additive, so 1.02 will contain more
fields than version 1.00 and will be backward compatible. Version 2.x will
break something from the version 1.x output.
Version 1.00 example:
{
"errormessages": [
"[ERROR] Error Message of Something",
"[ERROR] Another Message",
"These are very free form"
],
"generator": {
"built": "2021-03-01 14:44:22",
"commandline": "hydra -b jsonv1 -o results.json ... ...",
"jsonoutputversion": "1.00",
"server": "127.0.0.1",
"service": "http-post-form",
"software": "Hydra",
"version": "v8.5"
},
"quantityfound": 2,
"results": [
{
"host": "127.0.0.1",
"login": "[email protected]",
"password": "bill",
"port": 9999,
"service": "http-post-form"
},
{
"host": "127.0.0.1",
"login": "[email protected]",
"password": "joe",
"port": 9999,
"service": "http-post-form"
}
],
"success": false
}
SPEED
Through the parallelizing feature, this password cracker tool can be very
fast; however, it depends on the protocol. The fastest are generally POP3
and FTP.
Experiment with the task option (-t) to speed things up! The higher - the
faster ;-) (but too high - and it disables the service)
STATISTICS
Run against a SuSE Linux 7.2 on localhost with a "-C FILE" containing
295 entries (294 tries invalid logins, 1 valid). Every test was run three
times (only for "1 task" just once), and the average was noted down.
P A R A L L E L T A S K S
SERVICE 1 4 8 16 32 50 64 100 128
------- --------------------------------------------------------------------
telnet 23:20 5:58 2:58 1:34 1:05 0:33 0:45* 0:25* 0:55*
ftp 45:54 11:51 5:54 3:06 1:25 0:58 0:46 0:29 0:32
pop3 92:10 27:16 13:56 6:42 2:55 1:57 1:24 1:14 0:50
imap 31:05 7:41 3:51 1:58 1:01 0:39 0:32 0:25 0:21
(*)
Note: telnet timings can be VERY different for 64 to 128 tasks! e.g. with
128 tasks, running four times, resulted in timings between 28 and 97 seconds!
The reason for this is unknown...
guesses per task (rounded up):
295 74 38 19 10 6 5 3 3
guesses possible per connect (depends on the server software and config):
telnet 4
ftp 6
pop3 1
imap 3
BUGS & FEATURES
Hydra:
Email me or David if you find bugs or if you have written a new module.
[email protected] (and put "antispam" in the subject line)
You should use PGP to encrypt emails to [email protected] :
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Hydra is a parallelized network login cracker by van Hauser / THC: a proof-of-concept tool showing researchers and security consultants how easily a remote system can be broken into through weak passwords. It supports over 50 protocols.