As the premier GPU-based hash cracking software today, hashcat claims to be the world’s fastest, “capable of guessing up to 8 billion passwords per second.” In the early hours of December 5th Beijing time, hashcat’s author “atom” announced that the tool would be open-sourced.
Hashcat is a GPU-based hash password cracking tool. Prior to hashcat’s emergence, there were already some near-perfect password cracking tools, such as “PasswordsPro” and “John The Ripper.” Hashcat, which debuted in 2009, achieved multi-core utilization on modern CPUs.
Hashcat supports Windows 7/8/10, Apple OS X, and GNU/Linux operating systems. Through seven unique cracking modes, it applies to over 100 highly optimized hash algorithms.