Open rar archive first 3 characters. How to crack an archive encrypted with a password using WinRar

Greetings! Somehow I came across one archive. It contained valuable information, and therefore the contents of this archive were very necessary for me. However, there was one caveat - a password was set for this archive. It took me some time to solve this problem, thanks to google for that. And in the end, the password was known to me. Now, a huge number of password-protected archives are walking on the Internet. Therefore, if you need find out the password from the archive which you forgot, then read this article.

The operating system does not provide for password recovery for an encrypted archive, so we will use a special program that picks up passwords. The process of guessing a password is also called "brute". So, the software is called Advanced Archive Password Recovery. The program is paid, but a trial version is provided, which will be able to guess passwords up to four characters inclusive. But, to tell you a secret, you can find a hacked version of Advanced Archive Password Recovery Pro on the Internet. If it doesn’t work, then download from the link https://yadi.sk/d/6UmpWWW0jfQQE

The utility is easy to use and functional. By selection can find a password of any complexity. If there are a lot of characters in the password and you don't know exactly how many of them, then don't expect a quick result. However, if you know the number of password characters, then this will undoubtedly speed up the process of cracking the archive. Also, it is worth emphasizing that the program will take a very long time to select if the password uses small, large Latin letters and numbers (for example, "USERlife18").

So, for experience, I will create an archive with attached files and set the password to "45290"

Now let's guess the password for this archive using Advanced Archive Password Recovery. Let's run it

Now, since we know that the password is made up of numbers, let's make some settings in the program. Check the box next to "All digits"

Go to the Length tab, and specify the minimum and maximum password length,

Now click the Open button and specify the path to the archive,

After that, the automatic process of selecting a password for the archive will begin,

The time it takes to successfully reveal a password depends on the number of characters and complexity. Since, I specified a password only from numbers, the program coped quite quickly in almost six minutes. A window has appeared where the time spent on hacking and the password itself will be displayed,

As you can see, the program coped with its task perfectly. If you do not know what the password consists of, then first you can pick up the numbers, later the Latin letters, but it will take much more time. Also do not forget to specify the range of the number of password characters.

We drive the password into the archive and voila, all files are now available to us again.

Friends, as you can see, everything is very simple and find a password for the archive won't be too difficult. Everything just sticks to time. I recently wrote an article, read it if you're interested. Finally, I’ll say: do not use this information to hack someone’s personal archives, because this is punishable by law!

Is there an archive (ZIP or RAR) that you can't access because it has a password? If you have forgotten it, the only way you can try to recover your password is to use third-party utilities. Depending on the program in which the password for the archive was created and how complex it is, your chances of recovery will differ.

In this article, I want to mention a few tools that can be used to recover the password of a protected archive. I hope these utilities will help you recover a forgotten or find out the password of a ZIP or RAR archive.

It is worth noting that if the ZIP file is encrypted using AES 128-bit or 256-bit, then brute force is the only option. If the password is very long, you will need a powerful computer to process many passwords per second.

What I really like about this program is that it uses many methods to recover archive passwords. The most difficult situation is when you do not know how long the password is and what kind of characters are included in it. In such cases, it is necessary to start with faster methods before moving on to methods that take much longer.

After downloading and installing the software, you will see the main interface as shown above. To get started, click the Open button and select the archive file. By default, the attack type is set to brute force, which includes both upper and lower case letters.

Before pressing the Start button, you need to make a test, for this you need to press the Test button. The program will check the archive and provide information on the time of decryption of this archive.

On the Length tab, you can change the default options: minimum and maximum password length. You can set the length to 10 characters, this will increase the chances, but it will take much longer. It is worth noting: in the trial version of the program, you cannot change the maximum password length (4 characters).

It is also possible to use dictionaries for enumeration. By default, there is a built-in dictionary, you can expand it, you can find various dictionaries on the Internet, download them and load them into the program.

In addition, if you do not know the archive password, but you know for sure that it starts with some letter (let's say x) and its length is 7 characters, then on the Set tab, in the Mask field, you must write: x????? ?

Usually, simple passwords of 4 characters are selected in just a few minutes. In general, this is a great program and definitely worth using if for some reason you don't remember the password of your ZIP or RAR archive.

Passware Zip Key

Another good program, Passware Zip Key, will help you recover the password of a forgotten RAR, ZIP archive.

After starting the program, you can select the Run Wizard item and select the item of interest. For example, you know for sure that the password is small and contains only letters, in this case, select the first item. Or you know that the password contains various characters: letters, numbers, signs, for example, and choose the third item. Or, if absolutely nothing is known about the password, in this case, select the item corresponding to that.

If you select Use Predefined Settings, the program will start with simple attacks and then move on to more complex methods. If you click on the Attacks tab at the bottom, you will see which attacks will be used by the utility.

Some attacks will take longer than others. Again, it all depends on how long the password is set to and what type of encryption is used. Rough enumeration is rather slow, so there are faster methods in the program.

And finally, you can select the Advanced option and set everything up manually. Select an attack from the list and click on the left arrow to add it to the queue. You can select several attack methods and they will be used one by one, in turn, as in the previous paragraph, only the methods are chosen at your discretion.

There are other programs for cracking ZIP or RAR archives, but the above are the most convenient, even if the second program (Passware Zip Key) does not have a Russian interface, the program is still easy to use. If, suddenly, you used any other program that can help you find out the password from the archive, then share it in the comments.

Modern archivers are able to set a password on it when creating an archive folder. Having downloaded such a file over the network, you will not be able to open it until you unzip the archive. If you find yourself in such a situation, it's time to learn how to crack the archive for subsequent unpacking of the data.

Instructions on how to hack the archive

As a rule, it is possible to crack files like rar when they are password protected. How to hack a password-protected archive? With the help of special software.
One of the applications for extracting by password is Advanced RAR Password Recovery. It has enough functionality to iterate over possible codes, and you can add your own sequence of characters to the dictionary. Program language - Russian or English.
The disadvantage of this application is its conditional "free". As soon as the validity period comes to an end, ADRP will persistently remind you of this.
There is also similar software with similar functions - RAR Password Search 1.02. To work with archives, an external unpacker is required, for example unrar.exe. How to hack an archive with it? The developer's website usually provides detailed instructions, or you can call offline help in the application.
This application can also be paused and then, if necessary, resume work from the current position.
Another modern solution for cracking a self-extracting archive is cRARk 2.3. Cross-platform application that can read passwords for rar files. The program is Russian-language and optimized for a P-Pro type CPU. The help file describes an example of how to crack the archive and a sample for practice.
FZC is a computer program for cracking zip folders. It is based on the dictionary attack mechanism and combined brute-force attack. The application can pause at the user's command, and you can always continue from the last memorized position.

How to restore an archive. Working with winrar

Before cracking the archive, there may also be a situation where the file is corrupted.

The error occurs in the wrong CRC.

Experienced users, when creating an archive, always add a certain percentage of information for recovery (3-5%). This feature is available in every modern archiver. Now let's look at ways to restore a damaged archive.

If the backup is created in the winrar application, it is recommended to enable the "add recovery information" item in the advanced options. To do this, go to the "archiving settings" tab of the main program module.
In the same program, in case of errors in unpacking the archive, click on the "fix" icon on the toolbar or through the main winrar menu.
In the recovery settings interface, select the path where the corrupted content will be extracted.
Next, optionally specify the file type: zip or rar. The process can be run in "silent" mode if the amount of content takes up a lot of disk space.

To open a damaged .rar, knowing the path to the file, it is enough to call the "explorer" and it through the right mouse click.
Having opened, select "Operations" - "Restore the archive (s)". You will be taken to a window with settings for repair. A similar result can be obtained through the keyboard shortcut Alt + R.
The recovery task is very resource intensive. Therefore, if you plan to transfer the archiver to the winrar.exe process, set a high priority (via
During this procedure, disable antivirus software and all applications that consume a lot of system resources.
Do not download password cracking software from sources with a dubious reputation. Unscrupulous webmasters can pack a virus or
Check each archive copied from the network or on specialized free resources.

You are familiar with the situation when you archive some file with a password, and then you realize that you forgot it. You iterate over all possible options, and the result is zero. Dozens and even hundreds of attempts failed. What to do?

Since such situations occur quite often, the idea arose to write an article on how to bypass the password in Winrar. Only effective ways to hack archived data - and no amateurism!

What is needed for this?

Of course, the reader will ask the question: is it really possible to hack archived data at all? Our answer is yes and no.

Why yes? When the archive belongs to you, and you have at least a rough idea of what is written in the password (number of characters, Russian or English letters), the probability of bypass is high.
Why not? If we are talking about an archive downloaded from the Internet with a password, and even consisting of 8+ special characters, then no. But why? Modern archivers encrypt archives flawlessly. It was in the old versions of Winrar that there were holes that made it possible to almost instantly guess the password to any archive. Today, all this is unlikely to work, so you have to use character enumeration.

There is the following pattern: the more powerful and modern your computer, the higher the probability of hacking the archive file.

Saying "powerful", we mean a modern processor, a charged video card (or better, several at once). Selection programs use the power of the video adapter. Therefore, the better the video card, the faster it will be possible to guess the password.

The processor is also important. For example, if you have a Core i3 3225, the selection speed will be approximately 250 options per minute. This is far from a record, considering how many powerful processors there are on the market today.

Downloading the hacking tool and extracting it

Before you tell your friends "I hack archives with my eyes closed", you must:

Find the right program.
Learn to use it.
Hack at least 2-3 archives.

In this sequence, we will work with you. And the Crark program will help us with this, which can be downloaded from the link http://www.crark.net

After the utility is loaded, we unpack it.

The subtleties of setting Crark

Run driver-timeout.reg to add information to the registry. This rule applies to both Windows 7 and more recent versions of the operating system from Microsoft.
When a notification appears that the data was entered successfully, click "OK" and restart the computer. It is very important to reboot, because the information may not be written correctly.
Find russian.def, change the file name to password.def.
Open password.def with a text editor. Notepad is fine too.

It is in this file that the password selection settings are registered. The hash sign (#) indicates that the line will be commented out. The line $a * says that the password is guessed among small English letters. Were there small and large letters in the password-protected archive? The construction [$a $A] * will help you figure out the password.

Surely there were also numbers, right? If yes, in the file that opens, write the combination [$a $A $1] *. How to open an archive in which the password consisted of large / small letters, numbers, and special characters? That's right - write a new combination [$a $A $1 $!] *

That is, we prescribe everything unnecessary with the # sign, we configure the necessary to suit our needs. The task is simplified when the user remembers at least part of the password. To crack it, the Pass $1 $1 construct is introduced. Computing only the last two digits will speed up the search.

How to hack the archive?

Unpacking the downloaded archive.
Launching the cRARk GUI.exe file.
Even if a security warning appears, click "Run" anyway.
Click Set cRARk directory. You must specify the directory where crark was unpacked. In our case, this is the crark50 folder, you can have any other.
Search for the Password Definition File section, which has a drop-down menu. We open it and select Password (the file that we set up earlier).
Click Search, specify the path to the password-protected archive.
Click Start. Wait for the application to guess the password. We are waiting for the result!
When the archive is encrypted, be sure to select CRARK-HP. To receive an encrypted archive, it is important to check the "Encrypt file name" box when setting the password.

We just looked at how to open an archive file with a password using the free Crark app. The utility turned out to be not only powerful, but also fast enough. In many ways, it bypasses paid competitors. The only thing you really have to sacrifice when using the program is free time.

And the last. Do not be too lazy to fine-tune the utility. This will save you a few days of free time that you would have to spend waiting for the full enumeration.

Greetings!
Once a RAR archive fell into my hands.
I knew exactly what was in it and I needed it.
BUT, there was one but, the archive was password-protected.

If you're wondering how I solved this problem, please give me a hint.

Once upon a time, 8-10 years ago, I knew exactly what to do. But the years take their toll. Skills that you don't use tend to be forgotten.
And I decided to use the great way to solve the problem: google.

Fortunately, I can google and search for the necessary information too. BUT I was just amazed at what I saw. All forums, all sources were full of those that called for giving up this vile, nasty, boring and long undertaking. And they called to find either a wild hacker or quit.

I should note that I found only two resources that gave good advice. The first one is some kind of proger-hacker forum, and the guys are great there, they wrote lines of specific code and an idea how to break the password. Unfortunately, I will no longer find that thread in order to quote it, but the idea was not to select a password by brute force, but to select it through a HASH function. Dear programmer friends, don’t kick it, I’ve gone too far from IT, I can lie, but then everything seemed so familiar and logical, so I could be wrong in the definitions.

The second resource referred to a number of softins that can pick up a password by brute force, their comparison with each other, and their free or paid, strengths or weaknesses.

From my old experience, I opened any RAR archive that I came across with the simplest software in a maximum of a couple of hours. Of course, I will not argue about the complexity of passwords, and about the power of computers from those times, too. It's just an experience, what was, do not obessutte.
And so, I realized that I won’t be coding, well, I won’t be able to already. You need to look for some kind of softinu thread. And I went. After a dozen downloads and attempts to infect my computer with various nasty things, I was already desperate. Spending 15 minutes searching for software is a lot. Ideally, I would raise a virtual machine, but it was a pity for the time and resources of the laptop.

As soon as I was ready to give up, I found a little archivist. In this archive there was a softinka, and to my amazement a tablet. All this together weighed no more 2mb.

Having installed it in a minute, having treated it, I launched it. I saw a simple interface, fed her a file - an archive, and set the minimum password requirements to start. I decided to try to drive out at the first stage only a numeric password with a length of one to 8 characters. And putting it on the run, I was going to forget about it for a day, but as soon as I wanted to get up and pour tea, the softina blinked and I saw the cherished Success. I just gasped. I looked at the password: 777. :)

Once again I was convinced that users do not bother inventing complex passwords.
Separately, I want to note that although everything turned out so simple for me, this does not mean at all that everything will always happen so simply.

For example, if I muddied the password for the archive for myself, then I would definitely give up the idea of hacking it. Even if the password is only from numbers and letters of the Latin alphabet, then this is real for a long time :(

In this case, I would weigh many times whether I really need what is in the archive, and if I could not live without it, then rather ...
I will answer with a quote from a post, one of the correct forums:
“Yes, you can patch WinRAR itself with an assembler so that it accepts any password, you can probably also correct the checksum of files in the archive itself, but there will be zero sense from this.

Not stored in the archive itself is not a password, not a hash of the password.

The principle of unzipping is simple - when you enter a password, a hash is calculated from it 262144 times using the SHA1 algorithm, and with the received key WinRAR tries to decrypt (using AES) and unzip files (the correct password is not checked here or not). After the files are decrypted and unzipped, a CRC32 checksum is calculated from them, and this amount is compared with the amount that is written in the archive itself. If these amounts match, we receive decrypted files, and if they do not match, we receive a warning that the checksum or password is incorrect. There are no other checks for the correctness of the password in RAR - only this is the checksum check of the "finished product".

There is simply nothing to break. Any attempt to break WinRAR itself or the archive will result in the files not being decrypted correctly.

If you look at the unzipping process using Microsoft's Process Monitor, you can clearly see how WinRAR creates temporary files in the %Userprofile%\Temp\ folder. And if the access rights prohibit erasing files from this folder, then you can even see the result of entering the wrong password.

The only way to hack a RAR archive is brute force. If someone suggests another way, don't believe it, it's a scam."

Well, and finally, do not use this knowledge to select passwords for other people's archives, with a high degree of probability this is prosecuted by law.