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John the Ripper

Crack passwords offline. 500+ hash formats. Dictionary, brute-force, and hybrid attacks. The legendary open-source password cracker.

IntermediatePhase 3: Password AttacksInteractive Dual Perspective

John the Ripper

The legendary password cracker. Smart modes, 500+ hash formats, wordlist mangling, and brute-force when all else fails.

John the Ripper (JtR) is the world's most popular open-source password cracking tool, originally released in 1996. It's the Swiss Army knife of password auditing - supporting 500+ hash formats, intelligent cracking modes, and custom rule engines.

Why John Dominates:

  • • Universal Format Support: Cracks Unix crypt, Windows NTLM, Kerberos, bcrypt, scrypt, SHA-512, MD5, and 500+ more
  • • Smart Cracking: Starts with single mode (user info mutations), then wordlist, then incremental (brute-force)
  • • Wordlist Mangling: Built-in rules transform "password" → "P@ssw0rd!", "PASSWORD123", "drowssap"
  • • Multi-threaded: Leverages all CPU cores, GPU support via John-Jumbo version
  • • Community Edition: Free, cross-platform (Linux, Windows, macOS), active development since 1996

Legitimate Use Cases:

1.Password Auditing: IT teams test password policies by attempting to crack employee password hashes
2.Forensics: Law enforcement/IR teams recover passwords from seized encrypted drives, databases
3.Penetration Testing: Ethical hackers validate if weak passwords exist after gaining hash access
4.Red Team Operations: After Pass-the-Hash or Kerberoasting, crack service account passwords for persistence

John vs Hashcat:

John the Ripper
  • ✅ CPU-optimized (multi-threaded)
  • ✅ Intelligent modes (single, wordlist, incremental)
  • ✅ Built-in rules engine
  • ✅ Easy hash detection
  • ⚠️ Slower on GPUs vs Hashcat
Hashcat
  • ✅ GPU-accelerated (10-100x faster)
  • ✅ Advanced attack modes (hybrid, combinator)
  • ✅ Distributed cracking (multi-GPU)
  • ⚠️ Requires manual hash type ID
  • ⚠️ More complex syntax

TL;DR: Use John for quick CPU-based audits, smart cracking, and easy hash detection. Use Hashcat when you need raw GPU speed for large hash sets.

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John Console

Ready to Crack

Dictionary Attack

  • Fast: ~15,000 c/s
  • Common passwords first
  • Uses wordlists

Brute Force

  • Slower: ~8,000 c/s
  • Tries all combinations
  • Guaranteed (given time)

Hybrid Mode

  • Balanced: ~12,000 c/s
  • Dictionary + mutations
  • Best of both worlds

OPSEC: Authorized Testing Only

Password cracking is illegal without authorization. Only crack hashes obtained through authorized penetration tests. Use strong passwords (16+ chars, mixed case, numbers, symbols) and implement password policies to defend against these attacks.

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