Password Crackers

By Author: Henry Ford
Total Articles: 189
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Whereas there is no any distinctively acclaimed methodology for the comparison of software, any two software can be reviewed based on a criteria that incorporates the analysis of their quality. Typical quality factors include: functionality, evidenced by correctness, reliability, usability and integrity; engineering, evidenced by efficiency, testability and documentation, and adaptability, evidenced by flexibility, re-usability and maintainability (Pan, 1999).
The thoroughness of the documentation of software clearly shows its engineering quality. Usually, documentation covers the process undergone in the making of the software, whereas product documentation describes the software product itself. An important part of the product documentation is the user documentation. This entails the functional description of the system details the system requirements and describes the services of the software in brief; the introductory manual outlines an informal introduction to the software and outlines its ‘normal’ usage; the system installation document is aimed at system administrators and it outlines how to install the system, ...
... and the system reference manual should describes the software facilities and how to use them. The system reference manual is supposed to provide a comprehensive outline of error messages and the recovery from detected errors (Sommerville, 2001).
Software adaptability is important. A software that features regular and closely-spaced updates ensures high adaptability. These updates are usually fixes to glitches in the functionality of the software, to cover security loopholes, to add functionality to the software, or to improve work-flow. Releases are the development of better version of software and these usually result from a complete overhaul of the preceding version of the software. This helps to build flexibility, maintainability and re-usability.
Efficiency is the measure of the system resources needed for the execution of tasks for a given task compared to other software. A highly efficient software will efficiently carryout out its task without overloading the system it is operating on and when efficiency in the software’s working is coupled with a high levels of usability, the quality of software is greatly enhanced.
Different software present different learning curves for the user and thus the level of usability depends on this. Some software has a graphical user interface and other have a command line interface. A graphical interface is easier to use compared to a command line interface that usually requires the user to have advanced computer skills and a heavy investment in learning various commands.

Brutus and Ophcrack password crackers
Both Ophcrack and Brutus are free software (Hoobie, 2001; Objectif Securite, 2009). Ophcrack is cross platform; with capabilities to run on Windows, Linux/Unix and Mac OS X. It also supports versions of windows as recent as Vista. Brutus, however, is only available for versions of Windows such as Windows 9x, NT and 2000 (Hoobie, 2001). The software is widely available online from the developer's sites and other distributors. Ophcrack additionally offers download for all its previous versions and even a livecd format (Objectif Securite, 2009).
Ophcrack is easy to use (Davidster, 2007) and offers additional CLI for those who prefer to use commands. Brutus is not as easy to use due to the need to have some technical knowledge to use it and also due to lack of a clear manual. However, Brutus is highly customizable with the option of adding functionality with the Brutus Application Definition files. Ophcrack not as easily customizable as Brutus is. Brutus claims to have customizable authentication sequences with seamless custom import and export authentication types as BAD files (Hoobie, 2001).
A huge difference in functionality arises between Ophcrack and Brutus. Brutus is fundamentally used to crack passwords from a remote locate through the network. As such, it can interpret HTML Form for the types of authentication that use HTML Form/CGI and it supports SOCKS proxy for all types of authentication (Hoobie, 2001). Ophcrack, on the contrary, is for non-remote use. It cracks passwords based on rainbow tables; cracking LM and NTLM hashes. It can be used for system security auditing and allows for CSV exports (Objectif Securite, 2009).
Both Brutus and Ophcrack use password-cracking methods that are fundamentally the same; they both use brute force which guesses the password based on a methodical combination of various alphanumeric characters until the correct password is arrived at. Another method common to the two software is password-guessing based on guessing passwords from a predetermined list in a database. Brutus can generate its own list of passwords and allow manipulation of the same (Hoobie, 2001; Objectif Securite, 2009).
They also offer a 'suspend' functionality where one gets to pause and save the progress achieved, should one opt to stop the process for any reason. An additional functionality of Brutus over Ophcrack is the ability to recover from a crash and resume (Hoobie 2001).
Multitasking is a common attribute between the software. Ophcrack can look up multiple tables simultaneously while Brutus has the capability to maintain 60 target connections. Additional functionalities are real time graph plots to help analyze passwords for Ophcrack and multi-stage authentication in Brutus; with options for forms with no username, multiple usernames and single usernames (Hoobie, 2001; Objectif Securite, 2009).
The last Brutus update was in the year 2000 (Hoobie, 2001). Ophcrack has more recent and frequent updates, with the last update being Ophcrack 3.2.1 released in 2009. Ophcrack offers free password tables while Brutus offers BAD files (Objectif Securite, 2009; Hoobie, 2001).
Both Ophcrack and Brutus are not well documented, but ophcrack has better documentation. A user manual is lacking for Brutus and any details on how to use it are sketchy. The last alteration of its information page is more than a decade old.
Ophcrack offers multi-threading capabilities which takes advantage of modern multi-core CPUs to speed up the cracking. The processes are in form of tasks which can run in parallel to each other. . It also recovers 99.9% of alphanumeric passwords in seconds and can look up multiple tables simultaneously (Objectif Securite, 2009). Information on the stability of Ophcrack is not available, but no complaints about its stability can be found online. Brutus works at an average rate of 501 attempts per second and can handle up to 60 simultaneous target connections and can work for hours on end (Hoobie, 2001).
Conclusion
Brutus and Ophcrack offer open source solutions for password cracking; with functionalities differing slightly. The biggest functional difference is that Brutus is a remote hacking application while Ophcrack is non-remote. Most other functions are mostly to facilitate these two capabilities. They both implement brute-force hacking and table lookup hacking.
The support for Ophcrack is more active as it has the most recent updates and new releases. It also features markedly better, up-to-date documentation compared to Brutus. In terms of availability, Ophcrack has more online presence and the official site offers access to even the previous versions of the software. Lack of recent updates for Brutus renders it incapable of taking advantage of modern multi-core CPU's as Ophcrack does. It is therefore apparent that Ophtrack is has a more robust performance, even without benchmark tests.
These attributes of Ophtrack, plus the fact that it is cross platform and supports recent OS versions, makes it a natural choice over Brutus which is only available for Windows and support is limited to old Windows versions.

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