Methods like bruteforce, dictionary, and more
Educational Password Cracker is a Java-based learning tool designed to demonstrate how common password-cracking techniques work and why strong assword practices matter. The project allows users to experiment with multiple attack methods and hashing strategies, illustrating how factors like salting, peppering, and character complexity affect security and cracking difficulty. Built strictly for educational and ethical purposes, it emphasizes responsible programming while helping users understand real-world security vulnerabilities.
My goal was to deepen my understanding of cybersecurity concepts in preparation for a hacking competition while also creating an educational tool that helps users learn key security principles. By building this project, I was able to explore common attack methods firsthand while emphasizing ethical hacking and responsible programming practices.
One of the main challenges was designing an efficient brute-force algorithm without relying on impractical nested loops, which led me to implement a recursive and backtracking-based solution. Optimizing performance required prioritizing simpler character sets before expanding to more complex combinations, a strategy commonly used in real-world cracking tools. Balancing realism with ethical constraints was also critical to ensure the project remained strictly educational.
This project helped me understand how small security decisions, such as hashing strategies and password complexity, can cascade into real-world vulnerabilities. I gained hands-on experience with recursion, performance benchmarking, and secure system design from an attacker's perspective. Most importantly, it reinforced my confidence in scoping and independently building a complex technical project from concept to completion.