Familiarity With Hashcat And Nmap

[2025-09-09 :: Lab Notes]

Title: Familiarity with Hashcat and Nmap

Security+ Exam Simulation

  • Reviewed results from the SY0-701 Exam Simulation.
  • Key takeaway: Focus areas should include missed questions, error log tracking, and reinforcing weak domains.
  • Action: Add all missed Security+ questions to the error log for targeted review.

Hashcat Exploration

  • Experimented with hashcat -m 1800 using SHA-based password hashes.
  • Confirmed that .gz wordlists must be decompressed before use with Hashcat.
  • Clarified the difference between built-in candidate generation and wordlist-only attacks.
  • Observed hybrid attack behavior when combining wordlists with Hashcat’s rules.

System Fundamentals

  • Practiced Zsh command to display all file contents in the current directory: cat *.
  • Clarified that NSE (Nmap Scripting Engine) scripts are Lua-based automation scripts for tasks like vulnerability scanning, discovery, and exploitation.