Published: 06 August 2021    Last Updated: 03 July 2023

Whilst Hashcat is often provable faster than John the Ripper, John is still my favourite. I find it simple to use, fast and the jumbo community patch (which I recommend highly) comes packed with hash types making it a versatile tool.

One of the features of these tools, which is often unknown or at least under appreciated is the ability to create custom “rules” for teaching the tool how to dynamically generate potential passwords. Since Microsoft implemented “Password Complexity” and this was enforced around the globe, user have made the jump from a password of: password, to the [sarcasm] much more secure [/sarcasm]: Password1.