Top 10 Password Crackers

#1
Cain and Abel : The top password recovery tool for Windows
UNIX users frequently smugly assert that the best free security tools support their platform first, as well as Windows ports are frequently an afterthought. They are usually right, but Cain and Abel is a glaring exception. This Windows-only password recovery tool handles an enormous variety of tasks. It can recover passwords through sniffing the network, cracking encrypted passwords using Dictionary, Brute-Force and Cryptanalysis attacks, recording VoIP conversations, decoding scrambled passwords, revealing password boxes, uncovering cached passwords and analyzing routing protocols.


#2
John the Ripper : A powerful, flexible, as well as quick multi-platform password hash cracker
John the Ripper is a quick password cracker, currently available for lots of flavors of Unix (11 are officially supported, not counting unique architectures), DOS, Win32, BeOS, as well as OpenVMS. Its primary purpose is to detect weak Unix passwords. It supports several crypt(3) password hash kinds which are most commonly found on various Unix flavors, as well as Kerberos AFS and Windows NT/2000/XP LM hashes.


#3
THC Hydra : A Fast network authentication cracker which support lots of services
When you must brute force crack a remote authentication service, Hydra is frequently the tool of choice. It can perform rapid dictionary attacks against more then 30 protocols, including telnet, ftp, http, https, smb, several databases, as well as much more.


#4
Aircrack : The fastest available WEP/WPA cracking tool
Aircrack is a suite of tools for 802.11a/b/g WEP and WPA cracking. It can recover a 40 through 512-bit WEP key once enough encrypted packets have been gathered. It can also attack WPA one or two networks using advanced cryptographic methods or through brute force. The suite includes airodump (an 802.11 packet capture program), aireplay (an 802.11 packet injection program), aircrack (static WEP and WPA-PSK cracking), as well as airdecap (decrypts WEP/WPA capture files).


#5
L0phtcrack : Windows password auditing and recovery application
L0phtCrack, also known as LC5, tries to crack Windows passwords from hashes which it can obtain (given proper access) from stand-alone Windows NT/2000 workstations, networked servers, primary domain controllers, or Active Directory. In some cases it can sniff the hashes off the wire. It also has numerous methods of generating password guesses (dictionary, brute force, etc). LC5 was discontinued through Symantec in 2006, but you can still get the LC5 installer floating around. The free trial only lasts 15 days, as well as Symantec will not sell you a key, so youll either need to cease using it or get a key generator. Since it is no longer maintained, you are likely better off putting forth effort Cain and Abel, John the Ripper, or Ophcrack instead.


#6
Airsnort : 802.11 WEP Encryption Cracking Tool
AirSnort is a wireless LAN (WLAN) tool that recovers encryption keys. It was developed next to the Shmoo Group and operates through passively monitoring transmissions, computing the encryption key when enough packets have been gathered. You may also be interested in the similar Aircrack.


#7
SolarWinds : A plethora of network discovery/monitoring/attack tools
SolarWinds has created and sells dozens of special-purpose tools targeted at systems administrators. Security-related tools include lots of network discovery scanners, an SNMP brute-force cracker, router password decryption, a TCP connection reset program, one of the fastest and easiest router config download/upload applications available and more.


#8
Pwdump : A window password recovery tool
Pwdump is able to extract NTLM and LanMan hashes from a Windows target, regardless of whether Syskey is enabled. It is also capable of displaying password histories if they are available. It outputs the data in L0phtcrack-compatible form, as well as can write to an output file.


#9
RainbowCrack : An Innovative Password Hash Cracker
The RainbowCrack tool is a hash cracker that makes use of a large-scale time-memory trade-off. A traditional brute force cracker tries all possible plaintexts one through one, which can be time consuming for intricate passwords. RainbowCrack uses a time-memory trade-off to do all the cracking-time computation in advance and store the results in so-called "rainbow tables". It does take a lengthy time to precompute the tables but RainbowCrack can be hundreds of times faster than a brute force cracker once the precomputation is finished.


#10
Brutus : A network brute-force authentication cracker
This Windows-only cracker bangs against network services of remote systems putting forth effort to guess passwords through using a dictionary and permutations thereof. It supports HTTP, POP3, FTP, SMB, TELNET, IMAP, NTP, as well as more.