5 Most Popular Password Cracking Tools [Updated 2022]

Hey there! Are you surfing the internet in the hopes of finding some great password crackers? You can take a sigh of relief as this article is going to deliver you the best password cracking tools of 2022.

Although most of these software applications are free to install and use for password recoveries, we do recommend their fair usage for your own safety so that you don’t end up doing illegal stuff. 

While there could be a lot of reasons for you to be searching for hacking tools, we’re not here to judge. With our list of best password cracking tools of 2022 that includes CrackStation, THC Hydra, Brutus among others, you can be sure to get more than you asked for.

Without further ado, let’s check out the list of the 5 best password cracking tools of 2022 with which you can not only retrieve passwords but also monitor Wi-Fi, find security vulnerabilities, and much more.

5 Best Password Cracking Tools of 2022

From variations of the popular dictionary attack to a more common approach of the Brute force, these cracking tools imply some of the best-attacking techniques for faster password recovery. Read along with the article as we visit each of these tools individually in the following subsections.

1. CrackStation | Best Password Cracker Tool

We’re starting off the list with a free online password cracker – the CrackStation. Compatible across all major operating system platforms, this tool uses the password hash cracking technique which is a variation of the Dictionary Attack.

The free online service utilizes pre-computed lookup tables that store well over 15 billion entries including passwords from various online public resources. Let’s check out some features of CrackStation:

Features

• Utilizes a database of over 15 billion entries
• Only works for ‘unsalted’ hashes
• Provides free Password Hash Cracking 
• Supports protocols including (but not limited to) LM, NTLM, md2, md4, md5_hex, md5-half, sha1, sha224, sha256, sha384, sha512, and more.
• Uses an effective brute force hybrid word mangling

Platforms Supported: Linux, macOS, and Windows

Follow the link to visit the official site of CrackStation.

2. RainbowCrack | Best Password Cracking Tool

If you’re looking for a way to recover any lost password, this tool will probably help you out. RainbowCrack uses its own pre-computed tables (which it calls ‘rainbow tables’) to reverse cryptographic hash functions so as to recover lost passwords from online applications.

RainbowCrack implements a faster time-memory trade-off technique which allows for faster performance to crack passwords when compared to other brute force attack-based password crackers. To get more information about the tool, go through its features listed below.

Features

• Uses customizable hash algorithms
• Supports protocols including LM, NTLM, md5, sha1, sha256
• Faster password cracking
• Supports GPU acceleration with multiple GPUs including AMD, NVIDIA

Platforms Supported: Linux and Windows

Follow the link to visit the official site of RainbowCrack.

3. Brutus Password Cracker | Best Password Cracker Tool

Up next, we’ve one of the most flexible and fastest password cracking tools of 2022 – the Brutus Password Cracker. What originally started as a means to check for router passwords back in ‘98, has turned out to rank among the popular hacking and password retrieving tools.

As the name somewhat gives it away, Brutus Password Cracker uses the common brute-force attack approach to repeatedly guess and check the password from an available cryptographic hash. Here are some of the features of the tool.

Features

• Can support 60 target connections simultaneously
• Supports ‘No’, ‘Single’ and ‘Multiple’ username modes
• Runs on multi-stage authentication engine
• Supports configurable brute force modes
• Custom authentication types such as HTTP, POP3, FTP, NNTP, Telnet, Netbus, and more

Platforms Supported: Windows

Follow the link to visit the official site of Brutus Password Cracker.

4. AirCrack | Best Password Cracking Tool

AirCrack is a great tool to assess the overall security of your Wi-Fi network. Available across multiple different platforms, the tool can be used to monitor, analyze and test captured packet data of the Wi-Fi connection.

Apart from monitoring network traffic, the AirCrack software can also be used for attacking purposes including de-authentication, fake access points as well as cracking WEP and WPA secured passwords. Let’s dive in for its features.

Features

• Covers all areas of Wi-Fi security
• Heavy-scripted command lines
• Usability across multiple GUIs
• Carries out cracking with methods like the FMS attack and more

Platforms Supported: Linux, Windows, macOS, NetBSD, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, eComStation2 and Solaris.

Follow the link to visit the official site of AirCrack.

5. THC Hydra | Best Password Cracker Tool

Making its way into the list of the best cracking tools of 2022, we’ve got the open-source application – THC Hydra. THC supports a variety of security protocols that makes it a suitable software to test and analyze security functionalities.

The online cracker tool implements a brute force technique to recover passwords and is majorly used by security consultants, experts, and software developers to detect vulnerabilities in the client software. Here are some features of this great tool.

Features

• Supports parallelized connects
• Fast password recovery
• Supports mobile systems such as Android, iPhone, and Blackberry
• Supports over 50 protocols including Asterisk, Cisco, HTTP, FTP, NCP, NNTP, POP3, Telnet, SMB, and others.

Platforms Supported: Linux, Windows, macOS, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Cygwin, Solaris, and  QNX (Blackberry 10).

In order to install the software, you need to compile it first. 

Follow the link to visit the official GitHub page of THC Hydra.

Wrapping Up

This brings us to the conclusion of our article on the 5 best password cracking tools of 2022. We hope that you had a great time reading the article and got a lot of useful information.

If you agree with our list, tap on Share and send the article to your friends and colleagues who might be in need of these great tools. And hit us up in the comment section if we missed your favorite software for password recovery.

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