Increased processor speeds and powerful new cracking tools, such as one named Cain & Abel, have decreased password-cracking time dramatically. Although these new password-cracking technologies are useful only against stolen hashes or challenge/responses captured from a network, if attackers can gain access to your internal network either physically or by exploiting a machine on the network, they can use these tools to attempt to break your passwords. Even if you think you have a strong password policy in place, you might want to audit your user passwords to make sure users are strictly adhering to it. Beat attackers to the punch by using Cain & Abel on your own systems.
Cain Plus Abel Equals One Strong Tool
Cain & Abel is billed as a "password recovery tool for Windows." It's a freeware tool available on an Italian security Web site (http://www.oxid.it) and is offered with no usage limitations, as long as you don't sell it or attempt to decompile it. The authors are quite clear that they're offering the program to everyone, whether "good guys" or "bad guys." You can legitimately use it to recover lost passwords for systems and applications. It's also useful for auditing your Windows passwords to ferret out the weak ones, as well as for testing other aspects of your system security. . . .
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