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Preliminary attack
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You may find it helpful to read our articles on Windows security and password recovery examples. Video section contains a number of movies about our programs in action

Preliminary attack

Preliminary attack is a time-limited simple set of several mini sub-attacks. It is often run when a password cannot be recovered instantly, but there's no need to launch a full (eg. brute-force or dictionary) attack. The preliminary attack activated by setting 'Check frequently used password before each attack' check box on in common options dialog (see the screenshot below.)

Preliminary attack activation option


Usually a preliminary attack executes in less than a minute. When it is running the following dialog is displayed:

Preliminary attack progress

 

Preliminary attack consists of at least the following sub-attacks:

  • Common brute-force attack. Performs several simple brute-force attacks based on predefined character sets.
  • Simple dictionary attack. Fast check the password by verifying all words from a given dictionary.
  • Extended dictionary attack. It's almost the same as above but with some smart mutation options set on.
  • Attack on repeatables. Checking passwords as a repeatable sequence of a character. Eg. '1111111' or 'xxxxxxx'.
  • Attack on simple patterns, like '123456' or 'qwerty'.
  • Attack on complex patterns. The same as above, for compound patterns.
  • Keyboard attack checks for keyboard passwords and all possible combinations. Eg. 'qwer', 'qazwsx', 'asdzxc', etc.
  • National keyboard attack. The same as above, but checks passwords typed in national keyboard layout.
  • Complex keyboard attack is the same as previous 2 attacks, for compound keyboard patterns.
  • Passcape Password Prediction attack is the most complicated and state-of-art password prediction tool.