How to use KRyLack Password Recovery

How to use KRyLack Password Recovery

Recovering the Password
Encrypted file

Just enter the name of the ZIP/RAR/ACE archive you'd like to get the password for. Use the "Browse" button to select it. Alternatively, you can use drag'n'drop – just drag the file (with a mouse) from Windows Explorer, and drop it to the KRyLack Password Recovery window.

Note: if you need to recover a password for multi-volume RAR archive, you should specify the path to the first volume. You need to put all volumes in the same folder before starting recovery.

Recovery Type

The way how KRyLack Password Recovery will try to find the password for a given archive; you can select from Brute-force, Brute-force with Mask and Dictionary.

Mask

If you already know some characters in the password, you can specify the mask to decrease the total number of passwords to be verified. At the moment, you can set the mask only for fixed-length passwords, but doing this can still help. For example, you know that the password contains 8 characters, starts with ‘x’, and ends with ‘99’; the other symbols are small or capital letters. So, the mask to be set is “x?????99”, and the charset has to be set to All caps and All small. With such options, the total number of the passwords that KRyLack Password Recovery will try will be the same as if you’re working with 5-character passwords which don’t contain digits; it is much less than if the length were set to 8 and the All Printable option were selected. In the above example, the ‘?’ chars indicate the unknown symbols.

If you know that the password contains an occurrence of the mask character ‘?’, you can choose a different mask character to avoid having one character, ‘?’, represent both an unknown pattern position and a known character. In this case, you could change the mask symbol from ‘?’ to, for example, ‘#’ or ‘*’, and use a mask pattern of "x######?" (for mask symbol '#') or "x******?" (for mask symbol '*'). Enter the mask symbol in Mask Character field.

Charset

Instructs the program what characters have been used in the password. You can choose from capital letters, small letters, digits, special symbols and the space.

Alternatively, you can define your own character set (charset). Just mark the "Custom...". In the input window, enter all chars of your password range; for example: if you remember that your password was entered in the bottom keyboard row ("zxcv...") - your password range should be "zxcvbnm,./" (or in caps: "ZXCVBNM<>?"). You can also define both of these: "zxcvbnm,./ZXCVBNM<>?". In addition, you can load and save custom charsets, or combine them using the "Import from file..." button. You can use "Export to file" button to save current charset to Text File.

Minimal Length

This is one of the most important options affecting checking time. Usually, you can check all 4-character (and shorter) passwords in a few minutes; but for longer passwords, you have to have patience and/or some knowledge about the password (including the character set which has been used, or even better – the mask).

Note: This option is ignored if the Starting Password (in Start From field) is defined.

Start From

This option may help, for example, if you know the first character(s) of the password. For example, if you're sure that the small letters have been used (from 'a' to 'z'), the length is 5, and the password definitely starts with 'i', than type 'iaaaa' here. Please also note, that if you press the "Stop" button when KRyLack Password Recovery is working, the program writes the current password to this field. It can be used later to restart the program from the same point.

Dictionary

Simply select the desired dictionary file.

A small but very effective dictionary is included into KRyLack Password Recovery distribution: default_english.kpd.

Priority

Low (background), Normal or High. If you want to start KRyLack Password Recovery as a "background" process, which will work only when the CPU is in an idle state, you may select "Low". If you want to increase performance, select "High", but be aware that this will decrease the performance of *all other* applications running on your computer.

Minimise to Tray

When you press this button, the program window will disappear from the Windows desktop. The small icon will be created in the Tray area of the task bar (near the system clock). Just double-click on that icon to restore the window.

When all of the options are selected, all you have to do is press the Start button and wait. During the attack, you'll be able to see the Program status – number of passwords already tried, elapsed, etc.

Please note that you can stop the recovering process at any time (Stop button), to continue it later (or just save the project).