A few years ago, I was privileged to work as a Lab Technician at St. Peter’s SSS Nsambya. A level students were allowed to come to school with their laptops in order to reduce the jam in the school lab. Unfortunately, some students misused this gesture by using their laptops for the wrong reasons.
A clique of students even started dodging classes as they spent precious school time watching movies on their laptop. This didn’t go down well with the school authorities and leadership. So, on this fateful day, the rogue clique are got red handed by the Deputy Headteacher out of an important lesson.
The usual questions and a few barks from the Deputy Head Teacher followed but the students were quick to shut down their laptop. This raised the Deputy’s suspicion as to why these students didn’t want him to see what they were watching. Even when he asked for the laptop’s password, the students were adamant and stubbornly refused to reveal it.
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The Deputy quickly called for me with instructions to hack into the laptop and reveal its contents. To me, this was a piece of cake. I had done this over and over for clients and security personnel at E-zone Internet Café in Nabbingo.
Now, for you who has the intention of breaking into a laptop whose password you don’t know, read on!
What you need
There are many tricks and tools on how you can break the administrator password of the Windows Operating System but my favourite is a tool called Reset Windows Password by Passcape.
Related: Software every school computer lab should have
Procedure
Step 1: Burn the disc image on a CD. There are many options for burning software but Ashampoo and Nero stand out.
Step2: Insert the CD into the drive bay and boot from it. A welcome screen is displayed.
Step 3: Close to the bottom of the welcome screen you will be asked “What do you want to do?” Click on the drop-down arrow and choose “Lookup user password” and then click Next.
Step 4: On the next window, choose between Fast search and Deep search then click Next.
Step 5: On the next window, click Next. This brings you another window with a prompt. Choose Yes.
Step 6: The next window will display all the user accounts on your computer. Click Find passwords and give it some time. The passwords to your user accounts will be displayed after a short while.
In the example I gave of my former students, it took me less than 5 minutes to break their password. Fortunately for them, their laptop didn’t have anything to worry about. These boys were inspired by this act of ‘expertise’ and eventually developed a deeper interest in IT. They have now taken on careers in IT and are now the ones guiding me in the field I introduced them to.
This and more tips will be shared at this year’s ICT Teachers Capacity Development Workshop that is taking place at Kololo SS on 6th and 7th May 2019. If you are a teacher of ICT within Uganda and wish to attend, kindly register at cdw.ictteachersug.net.
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Stephen Dumba
E-zone School of Computing
+256 772 111 223 / +256 752 111 223
