This video is for educational and recovery purposes only—don’t use these techniques on files you don’t own or don’t have explicit permission to access. In this tutorial, I show you how I crack a password-protected ZIP file using Kali Linux and John the Ripper. I start by creating a normal ZIP and locking it with a simple 6-digit password, then I jump into the terminal, cd into my Downloads folder, and locate the secret.zip. From there, I generate a hash from the locked ZIP file so John can actually work with it, and then I run a brute-force style attack to try combinations as fast as possible using CPU power. I also break down what brute forcing really means with a simple example: trying every possible code on a safe box until one works—except the computer can do it way faster depending on password complexity. The main takeaway is simple: weak passwords get cracked fast (mine finished in about 7 seconds), so use long random passwords with letters, numbers, and symbols, and never reuse passwords across sites—especially since there are massive wordlists built from real data breaches.