There are several reasons why people want to crack a password. The main legitimate reason to use a password cracker to try to recover your password. However, password guesser tools are mainly used by black hat hackers to gain unauthorized access to a system.
In recent years, several password cracker tools have emerged. Each tool has its own unique features. This article shares ten of the most popular password cracking tools in 2020.
Top Password Cracker and Guesser Tools
Brutus
Brutus is one of the most popular online remote tools to crack passwords. Released in 2000, it is one of the fastest and most flexible password cracking tools. It is available for Windows, which supports HTTP (HTML Form/CGI), Pop3, FTP, HTTP (for Basic Authentication), Telent, and more. It also gives room for one to create his own type of authentication.
This tool is capable of connecting with 60 targets and can also support multi-stage authentication engines. It has a unique feature that halts and resumes the attack process at any chosen time. However, this tool has not been updated for a number of years now, but it is still open for use.
RainbowCrack
RainbowCrack is a free hash cracker tool available for Linux and Windows. It employs the use of a rainbow table when cracking a password by employing a hash algorithm to calculate hash pairs and plain text. The results it generates is in a rainbow table. This process is time-consuming but can be repeated over and over once the table is ready. Once the rainbow table exists, the program can crack passwords faster than another brute force using the tool.
Wfuzz
Known as a password cracking tool that cracks passwords using brute force, Wfuzz can identify different kinds of injections in Web applications. Some of these injection includes LDAP Injection, XSS Injection, and SQL Injection. This tool is multi-threading; it provides multiple proxy support and can also be used to find hidden resources such as servlets, scripts, and directories.
Wfuzz features include SOCK and Proxy support, multi-threading, fuzzing of cookies, and the capability of injecting via multiple dictionaries with multiple points.
THC Hydra
THC Hydra is prominent because of its fast-paced network logon password cracking feature. It has proven to be faster than other similar hacking tools. With this tool, it is easy to install and enhance the features of the modules.
It is available for Solaris, Free BSD, Linux, OS X, and Windows systems. Also, it supports a wide range of network protocols like LDAP, Oracle SID, Firebird, HTTP-FORM-GET, MYSQL, Telnet, HTTPS-FORM-POST, Rexec, SOCKS5, XMPP, MS-SQL, SNMP, Cisco AAA, SAP’s R3, HTTP-PROXY, My(SQL), Afp, Icq, XMPP & VNC, SSH v1 & v2, Oracle’s Listener, etc.
Aircrack-NG
Aircrack-NG is a WiFi password cracking tool that is capable of cracking WPA or WEP passwords. The software attempts to crack passwords by cracking its algorithm after analyzing the wireless encrypted packets. It uses the FMS attack as well as a combination of other helpful attack methods for cracking a password. Aircrack-NG is available for Linux and Windows.
Cain and Abel
Known mostly for its ability to handle an assortment of tasks, Cain and Abel is a program for security professionals, network administrators penetration testers and forensic staff. It is a cracking tool that acts as a sniffer, cracks encrypted passwords using a dictionary attack, decodes scrambled passwords, applies brute attacks, record VoIP conversations, analyzes routing protocols, reveals password boxes, carries out cryptanalysis attack, and uncovers cached passwords. It is available only for Windows.
John the Ripper
It is a free, open-source tool functional for cracking passwords for Mac OS, UNIX, and Linux. You can detect vulnerable passwords using this password cracking tool. The pro-version offers better features as well as a package for the target OS.
Medusa
Similar to THC Hydra, Medusa is a modular, brute force applying and speedy parallel cracking tool. It supports Telnet, HTTP, pcAnywhere, SMB, FTP, NCP, POP3, CVS, VmAuthd, MS SQL, etc. While performing password cracking, the host, username, and password are the flexible input.
Medusa is a command-line tool, which means it requires a high level of knowledge of computer programming. The efficiency of the tool is dependant upon the connectivity of the network.
OphCrack
Available for just Windows, Mac and Linux system, OphCrack is a free open-source rainbow-table based password cracking tool program that uses LM and NTLM hashes to crack Windows login passwords through rainbow tables.
L0phtCrack
L0phtCrack is a password recovery tool that can test the strength of a password. It tries to crack Windows passwords from hashes while utilizing active directory, primary domain controllers, network server and workstations (windows). Moreover, it introduces the use of brute force, rainbow tables, dictionary attack and hybrid attacks in generating and guessing passwords.
Passwords protect a wide range of information and personal, sensitive data from unauthorized access. But they could often be vulnerable. There are a number of things you can do to ensure that your password can’t be easily cracked. Some of the precautions to take include using a long, complex password, enable login screen warning messages, not disclosing your password, and not using the same password on multiple accounts.
