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Ray answers: What is PASS the HASH?

In this week’s edition of JUMPSEC’s Cyber Security Jargon Buster, Ray explains what PASS the HASH means.

“To understand what PASS the HASH is, you first must understand what is a HASH. So generally speaking, for every input, such as a password, there’s one unique output, a HASH, which just looks like a random string on alphanumeric characters. And two different inputs, passwords in this example, should never result in the same output HASH. As an example of this being used, when you type your password into a website, it will usually compute the corresponding HASH value, and if this HASH value matches the one in the website database, then you’ve typed the correct password. Now Pass the Hash is a hacking technique taking advantage of windows domain service authentication. By capturing password hashes from compromised hosts, an attacker can authenticate using the hash itself without recovering the plain-text password. This technique is used for lateral movement within the network with the goal of privilege escalation.”