Hashcat explained: How this password hack works

Examples of Hashcat

Hashcat dictionary attack

Since people often use really bad passwords, a dictionary attack is the first and most obvious place to start. The rockyou.txt directory is a popular choice. It contains more than 14 million passwords sorted by usage times, starting with passwords like “123456”, “12345”, “123456789”, “password”, “iloveyou”, “princess”, “1234567”, “rockyou”, all way to unusual passwords like “xCvBnM”, “ie168”, “abygurl69”, “a6_123”, and “*7¡Vamos!”.

Other free dictionaries exist on the Internet, mostly targeted at specific languages. Hashcat allows you to specify a list of words you like.

Hashcat combination attack

People often create passwords that are two words strung together. Hashcat implements this using a joiner attack that takes lists of two words (also known as “dictionaries”) and creates a new list of words of all words combined with all other words.


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