Hashcat vs. John the Ripper

Any time you want to perform offline password cracking exercises, Hashcat is going to be able to do that for you. I can't think of any scenario where you have a password hash you need to crack where another tool would be more suited to the task. Hashcat, of course, works best when you have a GPU available, but you can even use it on a VM if you use the --force flag.

Incentivized

It is best suited in those environments where complexity is not the key. We've used it fairly extensively in our UNIX to find weak UNIX passwords and in Windows environments too. It's very easy to get hold of as it is essentially Open Source, although a paid version is now available and we are thinking of looking at this proposition in-depth to see if it is viable. We found it easy to install and deploy across our systems. Patching was fairly regular, so we always had the latest version. It holds its own against DES and Blowfish encryption algorithms among many others.

Incentivized

• GPU accelerated password cracking
• Rule based attacks
• Supports all the hash formats

Incentivized

• Easily finds plantect passwords.
• Simply detects passwords hashes.
• Has a fully bespoke cracker that can be modified to users requirements.
• Excellent for UNIX and Windows usage.

Incentivized

• When drivers for your GPU aren't working it can be very frustrating to get started
• Some 3rd party GUI exists for Hashcat, but having an official one could be nice

Incentivized

• It needs to be modified to be able to break SHA 256, 512 and the lastest hashes.
• Can be slow and wildly against the lastest hashes.
• Require admin access to set up account.
• Old and is being superseded by better applications.

Incentivized

'John the Ripper' being open source was free to use, whereas the others had to be paid for. It was very simple to install and runs against many hundreds of hashes and crypts. It is always developing thanks to large communities on GitHub.

Incentivized

• Hashcat is a free tool
• It can be used to test password policies
• Great tool for penetration testers doing offline password attacks

Incentivized

• Helped us achieve initial Password Auditor goals and targets.
• Simple and cheap to deploy, so have saved greatly compared to paid for products.

Incentivized