Developer(s) | Alec Muffett |
---|---|
Stable release | 5.0a
/ June, 2000 |
Operating system | Unix |
Type | password cracking |
Website | www.crypticide.com |
Crack is a Unix password cracking program designed to allow system administrators to locate users who may have weak passwords vulnerable to a dictionary attack. Crack was the first standalone password cracker for Unix systems[1][2][3][4] and the first to introduce programmable dictionary generation as well.
Crack began in 1990 when Alec Muffett, a Unix system administrator at the University of Wales Aberystwyth, was trying to improve Dan Farmer's pwc cracker in COPS. Muffett found that by re-engineering the memory management, he got a noticeable performance increase. This led to a total rewrite[5] which became Crack v2.0 and further development to improve usability.