This might be a shocker for the beginner Linux enthusiast. All the big talks about Linux being secured and all, but in reality it takes less than 5 minutes to hack in to world’s most popular Linux distribution Ubuntu. Shocked! I am not bragging here. Its true. Lets see how can you hack login password to gain access in to Ubuntu. Lets see step by step how to hack Ubuntu password.
Step 1:
Switch the computer on. Go to Grub menu. Generally it appears automatically, if not then hold down the shift key until the boot menu appears. In the grub menu, choose for the “recovery mode” option.
It will bring you a black screen with several lines of output being displayed in a flash. Wait for few seconds here.
Step 2:
Now you will be present with different options of recovery mode. Here you need to choose “Root Drop into root shell prompt“. Like in the picture below:
Step 3:
Here, you will be presented with root access (why? Is this not a security fault?) without prompting any password. Use the following command to list all the users available:
ls /home
From the previous command choose the “username” for which you want to reset or (say) hack the password. Now, use the following command to reset the password for the selected “username“:
passwd username
It prompts for new password. Enter the new password twice:
Enter new UNIX password:Retype new UNIX password:
Voilà! There you go. You have just cracked it and now you can easily enter into the system.
Possible Troubleshoot:
While entering the new password you might be prompt with Authentication manipulation error like this:
passwd usernameEnter new UNIX password:Retype new UNIX password:passwd: Authentication token manipulation errorpasswd: password unchanged
The reason for this error is that file system is mounted with read access only. Change the access and remount the file system in the following manner:
mount -rw -o remount /
Now try to reset the password again. It should work now.
Were you successful in this hacking attempt? Or did you face any problem? Do let me know. Cheers 