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hashcat

GPU-accelerated password recovery

Password recovery and hash auditing tool that uses GPUs and CPUs to test passwords against hundreds of hash types.

Open sourceMITDual-use
Visit website View repository Docs
Homepage of hashcat
Official website (hashcat.net), captured by ThreatWire.

What hashcat does

hashcat tests candidate passwords against password hashes using GPUs (through OpenCL, CUDA, HIP or Metal) and CPUs. It supports hundreds of hash algorithms and several attack modes, including dictionary, mask and rule-based attacks.

Defenders use it to audit password strength and policy, and in authorised penetration tests. It is dual-use: only use it on hashes you are authorised to test.

Key features

  • Hundreds of supported hash types
  • GPU acceleration with OpenCL, CUDA, HIP and Metal
  • Dictionary, mask, combinator and rule-based modes
  • Session restore and distributed workloads
  • Benchmark mode

Licence

MIT · MIT License · Open source

GitHub does not report a licence; docs/license.txt in the repository is the MIT licence.

Checked by ThreatWire against the repository's licence file on 2026-10-20. GitHub does not report a licence.

Security of hashcat itself

No published advisory found for hashcat in GitHub repository advisories. That does not mean the tool has no vulnerabilities.

Sources: GitHub repository advisories · checked 2026-10-20.

Categories and tags

Passwords and credential auditing#password-audit#gpu#opencl#cuda#hashcat#password#cracking#gpgpu#c

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