What Is CUPP Tool And How To Use It? 

CUPP stands for Common User Passwords Profiler.

This tool use profiling in order to create list of possible passwords (called wordlist) – the hacker insert information about the victim like name, partner’s name, pet’s name, etc, and the tool will create a wordlist based on common usernames and passwords patterns. 

After generating a wordlist the hacker can use tools like John the Ripper or Hydra to brute force the user and crack it’s password. 

It’s useful for penetration testers and security professionals to create personalized wordlists for password attacks

CUPP Installation

CUPP Examples

Use cupp –i command to enter the interactive mode: 

CUPP will prompt you to enter information about the target, such as their name, date of birth, partner’s name, pet’s name, favorite sports team, etc.

Eventually a file will be created. The filename will be based on the target’s name or other identifying information – das.txt in our example. The file contain custom wordlist based on the informaion we entered:

Let’s cat the file in order to see the wordlist that was created: 

this screenshot is partial but you can see CUPP used the victim and victim’s partner birthdate, 15/9/1998 and  16/08/1997, to generate possible passwords.

How To Defense Against Brute Force Attack

• • Do not choose short and memorable passwords

• • Choose random passwords which not include private details like names and dates

• • Use password generators to set strong password

• • Use password managers to determine password strength

• • Use password manager to secure store of your credentials

Conclusion

Using CUPP in interactive mode allows you to create a highly customized wordlist tailored to the target’s personal information. This can be particularly effective for password attacks during penetration testing or security assessments. By leveraging detailed knowledge about the target, the python script can produce a wordlist that increases the chances of successfully guessing a password.