How to crack the password of a zip which is protected with a password?

Question

I have installed fcrackzip. The help page of fcrackzip says

$ fcrackzip --h

fcrackzip version 1.0, a fast/free zip password cracker
written by Marc Lehmann <[email protected]> You can find more info on*emphasized text*
http://www.goof.com/pcg/marc/

USAGE: fcrackzip
          [-b|--brute-force]            use brute force algorithm
          [-D|--dictionary]             use a dictionary
          [-B|--benchmark]              execute a small benchmark
          [-c|--charset characterset]   use characters from charset
          [-h|--help]                   show this message
          [--version]                   show the version of this program
          [-V|--validate]               sanity-check the algortihm
          [-v|--verbose]                be more verbose
          [-p|--init-password string]   use string as initial password/file
          [-l|--length min-max]         check password with length min to max
          [-u|--use-unzip]              use unzip to weed out wrong passwords
          [-m|--method num]             use method number "num" (see below)
          [-2|--modulo r/m]             only calculcate 1/m of the password
          file...                    the zipfiles to crack

methods compiled in (* = default):

 0: cpmask
 1: zip1
*2: zip2, USE_MULT_TAB

How can I crack the zipfile which is protected with password with fcrackzip or any other available tool?

Answer 1

There are a few ways to do this.

1. fcrackzip: To brute force you can use

    fcrackzip -u -b -v file.zip 
   

   The -u flag weeds out incorrect passwords, -b is for brute-forcing, -l is for specifying the password length, e.g: 4-8. You can use a password-list with the -D and -p flags, like so:

    fcrackzip -u -b -D -p /home/Desktop/passwordlist.txt file.zip
   

2. RarCrack:

    rarcrack --type zip/7z/rar file.zip 
   

   I like this one as it saves cracking progress to a file called yourfilename.zip.xml, and will pick up where you left off when you next use it.

3. John the Ripper: Generate the hash first using

    zip2john file.zip > whateveryouwanttocallit.txt 
   

   or use rar2john, depending on the file, and then:

    john --format=zip whateveryoucallit.txt
   

   or --format=rar.

   All of these can take a while depending on the length of the password, and the characters, but there you go.

   If any of these tools aren't installed, install them with

    sudo apt-get install rarcrack/john/fcrackzip 
   

   If this is still not enough, you can download a fast Windows zip cracker, such as Passper for Zip, and run it with Wine.