An analyst is testing the security of a server and attempting to infiltrate the network. The analyst is able to obtain the following output after running some tools on the server: Which of the…

John the Ripper is an offline password hash cracker that requires previously captured hash files to operate - it cannot directly attack a live network authentication service.

The tool output displays hashed or otherwise non-plaintext administrator credentials, meaning there are no usable cleartext passwords available to log in with directly.

Even if the guest account shows a blank password hash in the output, the guest account is disabled by default on modern Windows systems and is typically blocked from network login via Group Policy regardless of its password state.

Medusa is an online brute force tool designed to perform rapid, parallel authentication attacks against live network services such as SMB, RDP, FTP, and SSH. When tool output reveals an active account (HELPDESK) that is reachable on the network, Medusa can systematically cycle through credential combinations against that live service without requiring offline hash capture. This is the appropriate next step because the account is network-accessible and the administrator credentials visible in the output are hashed rather than cleartext.