Best Password Crackers Reviewed for 2024

AirCrack’s algorithm is designed to analyze encrypted packets and crack them, and together with its FMS attack feature, it can easily crack any password.

This feature can be used in two ways:

• Access WiFi networks that you don’t have access to
• Use it to improve the security of your own WiFi password by testing connections and monitoring fake access points.

Our favorite thing about AirCrack is its detailed documentation. It has a section dedicated to installation guides, getting started, and device compatibility. The instructions are simple to follow, ensuring that even beginners can set it up on their own.

It also has a special forum for all its users where you can post queries regarding the platform and have other fellow users help you out. If that doesn’t suffice, you can join its channel on Libera Chat to interact directly with the team.

To top it off, AirCrack is completely free to use. It’s also compatible with several systems, including OS X, Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, Solaris, and eComStation2.

A lot of applications use asterisks to hide your passwords for security reasons, which may force you to note down the password elsewhere, such as using one of the best password managers.

However, with Password Cracker, you can bid farewell to that issue. All that you have to do is hover the cursor over the Test Field, and it’ll show you your password.

What if your system is set to a different language? Luckily for you, Password Cracker is compatible with multiple languages. That said, the only thing that we didn’t like about Password Cracker is that it can’t crack MS Office password-protected documents because its password encryption style isn’t supported.

But on the brighter side, it’s fairly simple to use and has over a million downloads. Additionally, despite its huge customer base, there hasn’t been any report of data or hash leaks so far, making it evidently safer than most other password-cracking options.

Rainbow Crack sets itself apart from others that rely on brute force to crack passwords. Instead, it uses a unique large-scale time-memory technique to help you retrieve hash passwords for free.

The results from the time-memory method are then stored in a Rainbow Table, which is then used to crack the codes using brute force. While creating the Rainbow Table can be painstaking, you’ll be able to crack passwords at lightning speed once it’s ready.

Also, since having a pre-computed table of passwords and hash pairs simplifies password cracking, a good deal of software these days adds a unique twist to the passwords with a random value. While such passwords will require a larger rainbow table to crack, Rainbow Crack is certainly capable of handling it.

You can either create your own custom rainbow tables or make use of Rainbow Crack’s pre-designed templates. It offers a generous range of free tables for LANMAN, NTLM, MD5, and SHA1 password systems. If needed, you can also opt for paid tables.

Another benefit of using Rainbow Crack is that it supports both Windows and Linux devices. For Windows, the current software will support versions 7 and 10. For Linux, it’ll support 18.04 and 20.04.

Medusa has a GPL-2 license, while THC Hydra has a GPL-3 license. The benefit of a GPL-2 license is that it comes with stricter copyleft protections, meaning more security.

As a fast-paced command line tool, Medusa can test up to 2,000 passwords in a minute. Along with a list of passwords to try, you can also get a list of usernames and email addresses to test during the process.

This feature will help you conduct thread-based multiple-processing procedures to crack passwords, which will make the whole process faster and more efficient for you. However, it’s a command-line tool, meaning you’ll need some command-line knowledge to use it.

The best part is that you don’t need access to the target device to crack the password — Medusa lets you access and enter the system remotely, and it supports multiple protocols, such as HTTP, MB, MS-SQL, POP3, and SSHv2.

That means regardless of the device type or network, Medusa will help you retrieve the password.

In terms of flexibility, it’s one of the few password-cracking tools that lets you pause, resume, or import an attack. For instance, if you’re trying to crack a password on your existing system and realize it can’t run the function, you can immediately pause and import it to a different system without losing your progress.

The only thing that we didn’t like about Brutus is that it hasn’t been updated in a long time. Hence, it’s not suitable for complex passwords that use a combination of digits, letters, and special characters.

Also, since it’s limited to Windows devices, you can use it to break into social media accounts or email IDs. Simply put, it does a few things, but it does them well.

To make up for its shortcomings, it offers a wide variety of authentication protocols such as HTTP (basic authentication), HTTP (HTML Form/CGI), POP3, FTP, SMB, Telnet, IMAP, and so on. If needed, you can also add custom modules to it. Plus, to top it off, Brutus also offers up to 60 simultaneous connections for all users.

CrackStation uses pre-computed lookup tables to help you crack the code to an application or device, just like Rainbow Crack. These tables contain the mapping between the hash of a password and the correct password for that hash. To speed up the search process for a hash value, each entry is indexed.

If the password that you’re looking for is in the table, it’ll only take you a few seconds to crack it. CrackStation’s technique is a variation of dictionary attacks containing a combination of both dictionary words and public password dumps.

In total, the lookup tables contain over 15 billion entries extracted from various online sources. In short, there’s hardly any password CrackStation can’t crack. Additionally, you don’t even have to create an account to get started.

Once you visit the website, you can directly add up to 20 unsalted hashes per line on the home page, confirm you’re a human, and crack the passwords — that’s how simple it is. The only con is that it doesn’t work with salted passwords.

Password salting is a common technique to enhance the strength of a password by attacking a random string of characters. As such, this is also a common practice incorporated by the best business password managers.

That said, these passwords aren’t usually used on personal devices, so CrackStation remains a great choice.

In our research, OphCrack successfully recovered 99.99% of alphanumeric passwords — the ones commonly used on personal devices. For simple passwords like these, it uses a brute-force module which is basically a trial-and-error method — success is almost guaranteed with this technique.

Along with its quick cracking system, it’s also popular for its user-friendly interface. While most other password-cracking tools require a substantial amount of technical expertise, you can get started with OphCrack even if you aren’t tech-savvy.

OphCrack is best equipped to crack LM and NTLM passwords — the two ways all passwords on Windows devices are stored. If you need assistance cracking the passwords, you’ll also find a live CD of OphCrack on cracking Windows-based passwords.

Since OphCrack is a free and open-source platform, all tech experts are welcome to look at its fundamental codes if they find any discrepancies within the platform. This way, you won’t have to wait for OphCrack’s team to fix the issues before you can go back to password cracking.

What makes Hashcat stand apart from the competition is that it’s available for almost every operating system and cracks 300 different types of hashes. This means that no matter what kind of password the target device has, Hashcat is the most-equipped tool to crack it, and you won’t need the support of any secondary tool.

That said, Hashcat‘s biggest USP is simultaneous password cracking. With its highly parallelized password-cracking technique, you’ll be able to crack multiple passwords on multiple devices at the same time and also distribute the hash-cracking system via overlays. This makes the whole process much more efficient.

Along with remote password recovery, Hashcat can also help you with offline password recovery exercises. Its most common method of cracking is a Dictionary Attack, where the target password is matched with a dictionary list of common phrases and words used by businesses and individuals.

Hashcat takes it a step ahead by allowing you to add custom rules to the attack technique, which will certainly speed up the process.

What makes it unique is that it helps you with both local and remote password recovery. For instance, if you’ve lost access to your work device, you can use its local password recovery feature.

On the other hand, if you need access to a device while you’re away on a trip, you can benefit from John the Ripper’s remote password recovery feature.

It uses Brute Force attacks and Dictionary Attacks to crack passwords, and it’s usually used by security experts of large organizations and companies to check the strength of their office system passwords.

While it’s primarily built to detect UNIX passwords, it can now also detect Windows LM and other types of password hashes. That said, what makes it slightly different from other password-cracking tools is that it has two versions:

• A free, open-source version that anyone can download. These features are best suited for non-commercial purposes.
• A commercial version, which is also free, available for Linux and macOS X on Intel and AMD processors.

The only difference between the two is that the Pro version is in native format and meant for specific operating systems only.

A benefit of using THC Hydra is that its functions aren’t limited to any one platform. Its algorithm works with Windows, macOS, and Unix devices.

It’s also one of the few password-cracking tools that support mobile devices such as Androids, iPhones, and Blackberry. No matter what your target device is, you can gain access to it with just one tool.

That said, THC Hydra uses a brute-force password-guessing attack technique to crack the codes. Here, the tool uses every combination of letters, numbers, and special characters until it finds the password. Despite being one of the most common techniques, it’s efficient and has minimum chances of error.

Also, since it’s open-source software — like OphCrack and John the Ripper — you can check its code and contribute to the structure to transform the tool.