During an engagement, a penetration tester has captured several hashed passwords suspected to be using the MD5 hashing algorithm. They need to perform a time-optimized attack to attempt to reveal the plaintext passwords. Which tool should they prioritize for the fastest hash cracking of MD5, particularly when leveraging GPU acceleration?
Although all options are credential testing tools, Hashcat is designed for optimized performance on both CPUs and GPUs and is highly effective for cracking various types of hashes, including MD5. Its GPU acceleration capabilities significantly reduce the time required to crack hashes. John the Ripper also supports hash cracking but is typically outperformed by Hashcat when GPU resources are utilized. Cain is generally used for network sniffing and password recovery but is not as versatile as Hashcat for hash cracking. CeWL is actually a custom word list generator tool and not a hash cracking tool, so it does not apply to the direct cracking of hashes.
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What makes Hashcat better for cracking MD5 hashes compared to other tools?
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What are the potential risks of using MD5 for password hashing?
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How does GPU acceleration enhance the performance of hash cracking tools like Hashcat?