Ophcrack provides a bootable CD which looks at the local Windows installation and proceed to use the computer’s available memory and CPU resources to extract the passwords for all the user accounts. Ophcrack by default cracks only alphanumeric passwords (letters and numbers only); serious users would have to buy additional data files to crack more complex passwords.
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Running this on my Windows installation was an eye-opener – my system’s weak passwords were cracked in less than a minute. It instilled the fear of weak passwords in me like no amount of haranguing or well written articles could!
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