█
LastWrite
  • > Curriculum
  • > Pricing
  • > For Educators
  • > About
  • > Contact
Log InGet Started

Questions, concerns, bug reports, or suggestions? We read every message, write to us at [email protected].

More ways to reach us →
LastWrite

Structured computer science lessons for aspiring developers and security professionals.

[email protected]

(201) 785-7951

Mon–Fri, 9 AM–5 PM EST

Learn

  • Curriculum
  • Pricing

Company

  • About
  • For Educators & Schools
  • Contact Us

Legal

  • Terms of Service
  • Privacy Policy
© 2026 LastWrite. All rights reserved.
Curriculum/Cybersecurity/Penetration Testing/Exploitation Basics
50 minIntermediate

Exploitation Basics

After this lesson, you will be able to: Use Hydra for password attacks against a controlled target.

Once you've enumerated services, exploitation often comes down to credentials. This lesson covers brute force, dictionary attacks, and credential stuffing, using Hydra against an authorized lab.

Prerequisites:Scanning and Enumeration

Attack types

Brute force, every combination (slow, last resort). Dictionary, wordlist of common passwords (rockyou.txt, 14M passwords). Credential stuffing, leaked creds from prior breaches replayed elsewhere (because users reuse passwords). Password spraying, one password, many users (avoids lockouts).

Hydra against SSH (lab only)

ONLY against TryHackMe / HTB / your own VM:

tsx
# SSH login attack
hydra -l admin -P /usr/share/wordlists/rockyou.txt ssh://10.10.10.10
# Web form attack
hydra -l admin -P passwords.txt 10.10.10.10 http-post-form \
'/login:username=^USER^&password=^PASS^:Invalid'
# Multiple users
hydra -L users.txt -P passwords.txt ssh://10.10.10.10

💡 Defenses you'll trip

Account lockouts after N attempts. Rate limiting / CAPTCHAs. fail2ban auto-banning your IP. Real engagements: respect lockout thresholds or you'll DoS the target.

Beyond passwords

Once in: extract more creds (Mimikatz on Windows, /etc/shadow on Linux, ~/.aws/credentials, ~/.ssh/id_rsa). Most pen tests succeed not by 'l33t hax' but by chained credential reuse.

Sign in and purchase access to unlock this lesson.

Sign in to purchase
←Scanning and Enumeration
Back to Penetration Testing
Web Application Penetration Testing→