this work with Joomla 1.0 and Joomla 1.5

If you know the email address that was used, the simplest thing is to do is to use the “lost password” Front-end function if you have made it available.

If not, you will need access to the MySQL database.

Now one will hack Joomla website just by reading this post.

You have two choices, either add a new super administrator or change the password stored in the data base. To do this you need to go to phpMyAdmin (or use a similar tool) and manually edit the database. Before doing this back up our complete database.

Run this to create a new user known as admin2.

INSERT INTO `jos_users` VALUES
    (62, 'Administrator2', 'admin2', '
 your-email@email.com This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
 ', '21232f297a57a5a743894a0e4a801fc3',
    'Super Administrator', 0, 1, 25, '2005-09-28 00:00:00', '2005-09-28 00:00:00', '', '');
INSERT INTO `jos_core_acl_aro` VALUES (10,'users','62',0,'Administrator2',0);
INSERT INTO `jos_core_acl_groups_aro_map` VALUES (25,'',10);

The password will be admin. Immediately log in and change this password.

Or

You can change the password in the table for your admin user (assuming you never changed the user name; if you have just change the instructions below to .

The password is stored in the MySQL database jos_users table password field. (change this for your table prefix if different)

Open the table, find your admin username, and then select that row for editing.

The password must be hashed, you cannot simply enter text into this field.

Set the password to a known value

- password = "this is the MD5 hashed password"
------------------------------------------------------
- admin  = 21232f297a57a5a743894a0e4a801fc3
- secret = 5ebe2294ecd0e0f08eab7690d2a6ee69
- OU812  = 7441de5382cf4fecbaa9a8c538e76783

Paste the hashed password into the field, save the change, and log-in using the new password. Immediately change your password to something more secure!

original post can be found at Syracuse Designer web site