Hardcoded md5 serial number crack

[TmC]

Good evening to all of you!

I am currently trying to crack a program that can be registered with a pre-defined set of serial numbers, hardcoded into the application as a big set of md5 hashes (the serial number format is !!!!-!!!!-!!!!-!!!! where ! can be anything in ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789)

I am sorry I can't share the program since it contains recognisable data.

I am currently trying two ways:

1. I extracted all serial number hashes, and currently running a generator that randomises numbers between 1 and 36 and then takes from the allowed char set the corresponding value and forms a random serial number, then convert to md5 and check if hash is in the list. if not, discard and try a new one. The program has been running for 4 hours and not a single valid serial number has appeared

2. I built a program to generate all possible combinations of serial numbers, both clean and as md5values. In 4 hours of runtime, I completed the last four !!!!, but the remaining !!!!-!!!!-!!!! still has to come and I suspect it will run for long.

Since none of the methods appear to yield a result in a reasonable time, does any of you have any suggestion to speed up the process?

Might the CUDA toolkit be of any help?

I also thought about rainbow tables, but they tend to be more useful for words, rather than for serial numbers. I know they are pre computed and that a serial number is just a defined series of char...but don't know if rainbow tables for serial numbers exist.

Thanks to anyone.

[aijundi]

Unfortunately, neither way will yield any results. You have a 16 character serial with 36 character charset, that is 36^16 combinations, almost 8*10^24.

Assuming you crack trillions of passwords per second, it will take thousands of years to go through all these combinations.

If you still want to try cracking the hashes, then use a tool called hashcat, making a program yourself will most likely be very slow compared to it.

[TmC]

Originally Posted by aijundi

If you still want to try cracking the hashes, then use a tool called hashcat, making a program yourself will most likely be very slow compared to it.

Do you know if it is possible to supply a mask for the well known parts while letting the program generate unknown ones?

[aijundi]

Originally Posted by TmC

Do you know if it is possible to supply a mask for the well known parts while letting the program generate unknown ones?

Yes it is possible

[traf0]

Originally Posted by TmC

Do you know if it is possible to supply a mask for the well known parts while letting the program generate unknown ones?

Great tutorial how to perform mask attack using hashcat

https://www.4armed.com/blog/perform-mask-attack-hashcat/

[TempoMat]

Originally Posted by aijundi

Unfortunately, neither way will yield any results. You have a 16 character serial with 36 character charset, that is 36^16 combinations, almost 8*10^24.

hashcat, making a program yourself will most likely be very slow compared to it.

Sholdn't the number of conbinations be 36^19, if the password format ist given as !!!!-!!!!-!!!!-!!!!?
Or are the 3 dashes removed from the password before the MD5 Hash.

@TmC: Can you share the extracted MD5 Hashes?
Just a dumb question: Are the MD5 init variables the standard ones?

[aijundi]

Originally Posted by TempoMat

Sholdn't the number of conbinations be 36^19, if the password format ist given as !!!!-!!!!-!!!!-!!!!?
Or are the 3 dashes removed from the password before the MD5 Hash.

I have no idea if they are removed or not, but they either never change or removed, which in both cases leaves 16 variable characters.

[TmC]

Originally Posted by TempoMat

Sholdn't the number of conbinations be 36^19, if the password format ist given as !!!!-!!!!-!!!!-!!!!?
Or are the 3 dashes removed from the password before the MD5 Hash.

The 3 dashes are always there, they are known chars.

Originally Posted by TempoMat

Just a dumb question: Are the MD5 init variables the standard ones?

Don't understand

[Jupiter]

When I saw title of this thread ("Hardcoded md5 serial number crack") my first thought was "COLLISIONS". But no one mentioned MD5 collisions yet.

It's better to threat serial number as bytes (not as text) to successfully implement an attack.

You can find appropriate MD5 collision sources at GitHub, for example:
MD5 collision

Originally Posted by TmC

Don't understand

May be he means MD5 initial values from reference implementation.

[TmC]

Originally Posted by Jupiter

When I saw title of this thread ("Hardcoded md5 serial number crack") my first thought was "COLLISIONS". But no one mentioned MD5 collisions yet.

It's better to threat serial number as bytes (not as text) to successfully implement an attack.

You can find appropriate MD5 collision sources at GitHub, for example:
MD5 collision



May be he means MD5 initial values from reference implementation.

They are plain MD5 textual hashes like MD5(Serial) = Hash

[TempoMat]

Originally Posted by TmC

The 3 dashes are always there, they are known chars.
Don't understand

I meant the chaining values i.e.
0x67452301, 0xEFCDAB89, 0x98BADCFE and 0x10325476.

I have for instance seen at least a program using the following chaining values instead
0X1234567, 0X89ABCDEF, 0XBA98FEDC and 0X76504321

[TmC]

Originally Posted by TempoMat

I meant the chaining values i.e.
0x67452301, 0xEFCDAB89, 0x98BADCFE and 0x10325476.

I have for instance seen at least a program using the following chaining values instead
0X1234567, 0X89ABCDEF, 0XBA98FEDC and 0X76504321

Nope. They are inserted as plain string (e.g. 9a4df789abe345a902971c9826734ed1). What you type is md5ed as a string and the two are compared. If the md5 value is found in the list, then what you typed is valid.

[LaDidi]

@TmC :
Calculate MD5 with your serial.
Change one MD5 hash with this one.
That's all.

[foosaa]

Originally Posted by LaDidi

@TmC :
Calculate MD5 with your serial.
Change one MD5 hash with this one.
That's all.

Yes. This is the simplest attack you could do. Don't worry about cracking the hash. Attack the hash by replacing one the existing hash with a known hash.

If you find the location of the predefined hashes in the program, create a new MD5 hash of any string (say blablabla) and replace one of the hashes in the existing predefined hashes with the created hash and you are done. It should work unless there are any other checks that are based on the serial number.

If you would like to share the executable privately for patching, let me know and I'll see if I can help to patch it.

[TmC]

Originally Posted by foosaa

It should work unless there are any other checks that are based on the serial number.

There is no problem with patching the program. (inlining rather than patching, since it is part of a suite that has also a hardware part and the hardware is checking for program integrity at startup).

Unfortunately, the serial is checked also when requesting updates through the update routine, and even patching the program wont pass the server check.

The serial is passed in cleartext so a patch that simply gives one random hash to check does not work.