I came across a rather interesting walkthrough the other day which explains how to reset your Ubuntu password. The walkthrough is great as it tells you exactly what you need to do. However, when I started reading the comments on this post, it really got me thinking since it was “that easy” to get around a password.

One commenter on this post makes a great point which holds true for any OS: if someone can get physical access to your drive, they can get anything off of it they want unless the drive is encrypted. My thought on this is the only way someone can actually get physical access to my computer is if they break into my house, in which case I have far bigger problems. I generally do not keep anything sensitive on my system at all (email is all web based) and I would change all our banking information anyway in the event of a break-in.

Anyhow, this is just something to keep in mind, not to scare you or anything…

While trying to recover a long forgotten SQL password and exhausting the common/typical password selections, I had the need to seek a recovery utility (I couldn’t reset the password as a certain application depends on the current value). After looking for a bit I came across a great utility: Cain & Abel.

This free tool offers a multitude of password recovery methods for a variety of software titles. From their web site:

Cain & Abel is a password recovery tool for Microsoft Operating Systems. It allows easy recovery of various kind of passwords by sniffing the network, cracking encrypted passwords using Dictionary, Brute-Force and Cryptanalysis attacks, recording VoIP conversations, decoding scrambled passwords, recovering wireless network keys, revealing password boxes, uncovering cached passwords and analyzing routing protocols.

This program does not take advantage of exploits, only uses what the system makes available. In my case, after running a brute-force attack overnight, I was greeted in the morning with the password I needed.

If you use an instant messaging program, odds are you have it automatically log in using your remembered user name and password. This is a very handy feature, but allows you to easily forget your password since you never have to enter it. If this is the case and you want to “recover” your password, then download MessenPass.

MessenPass is a free utility which automatically detects the IM programs you have on your computer, decrypts the stored passwords and displays them in an easy to read grid. MessenPass works on a multitude of IM programs, including all the most popular ones.

You never know when you might need the ability to “remember” your password, so this is a useful utility to have available.