Help with Cain?

[warman333]

Probably a noob question

There's no such thing as a stupid question, except one you haven't tried googling already: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=define%3A+hash

Also a second question , is it possible to bruteforce an .exe?

I'm not sure exactly how one would go about bruteforcing an exe, to be honest.

Thanks for the hashes stuff, but the second question, really?
How the heck do crackers crack serials anyway?

[Tentra]

How the heck do crackers crack serials anyway?

I'm guessing your talking about keygens and patches. That's a totally different topic, unrelated to hashes (usually).

How To Make A Keygen (Let me know if this is considered supporting illegal activities)

[insomaniacal]

Basically, serials fulfill some sort of equation that is hidden in the program code. A cracker would open up the application in a debugger, find this equation, and develop an algorithm that can be used to generate serials for it.

That's highly simplified, and there's normally many steps involved, but that's the basic idea.