Ethical Hacking Essentials Practice Test

Which tool is best known as a brute force password cracker?

1. Wireshark

2. Burp Suite

3. Medusa

4. HashCat

The correct answer is: Medusa

The tool known for its capabilities as a brute force password cracker is Medusa. Medusa is specifically designed for speed and parallelism in cracking passwords across various protocols, making it effective for brute force attacks. It utilizes multiple threads, allowing it to attempt numerous password combinations simultaneously, which significantly reduces the time it takes to crack passwords. While both Wireshark and Burp Suite are powerful tools in the realm of network security and ethical hacking, they serve different functions. Wireshark is primarily a network packet analyzer used for network troubleshooting and monitoring, while Burp Suite is mainly focused on web application security testing, including penetration testing but not specifically password cracking. HashCat, while not the correct answer in this instance, is also a well-known password recovery tool that specializes in cracking password hashes rather than performing brute force attacks on live systems. It utilizes the processing power of both CPUs and GPUs to recover passwords and is particularly effective for hash-based attacks. In summary, Medusa stands out for its brute force capabilities and efficiency in tackling password cracking tasks across various protocols, making it the most appropriate choice for this question.