What changed in hashcat from 6 to 7

Welcome to the hashcat v7.1.2 release!

This hotfix restores backward compatibility in machine-readable status view mode, which was broken in v7.1.0 and affected third-party overlays such as the Hashtopolis agent. It also fixes issues in the Argon2 libraries when used in multi-hash modes. If you are using hashcat v7.1.0+ with LUKS2 or KeePass KDBX4, updating is strongly recommended.

The release also introduces a new assimilation bridge plugin, the Rust bridge. Just like the Python bridge plugin, which lets you write hash-mode extensions in Python instead of C, you can now do the same in Rust. This is a valuable community contribution that will be covered in more detail in the next release notes. The feature is already fully functional and ready for early adoption, with initial documentation available in hashcat-rust-plugin-requirements.md.

For the full list of changes, please see docs/changes.txt.

Welcome to hashcat 7.1.1 release!

This hotfix addresses issues related to multi-hash handling in LUKS2 and KeePass (KDBX4). Single-hash cases were not affected. It also includes some other minor changes.

If you are looking for release notes please refer to docs/changes.txt.

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Welcome to hashcat v7.1.0!

This is a minor release, but an important one. It comes just two weeks after the major v7.0.0 update, as part of our effort to keep release cycles shorter than in the past.

Although two weeks may seem quick, this version includes several important bug fixes along with notable new features and hash modes, which makes a v7.1.0 release fully justified.

If you have 5 minutes, here's the full writeup: Full Release Notes and detailed writeup

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New Algorithms

• AS/400 DES
• AS/400 SSHA1
• Blockchain, My Wallet, Legacy Wallets
• Cisco-ISE Hashed Password (SHA256)
• LUKS2 (Argon2i KDF type)
• KeePass (KDBX v4)
• SAP CODVN H (PWDSALTEDHASH) isSHA512
• sm3crypt $sm3$, SM3 (Unix)
• BLAKE2b-256
• BLAKE2b-256($pass.$salt)
• BLAKE2b-256($salt.$pass)
• MD6 (256)
• sha224($pass.$salt)
• sha224($salt.$pass)
• sha224(sha1($pass))
• sha224(sha224($pass))

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New Features

• Attack-Modes: Use 64-bit counters for amplifier keyspace
• Host Memory: Update method to query free host memory
• Add initial support for running hashcat inside Docker
• Device Memory: Warn instead of waiting on high GPU memory usage
• ... a lot more
• See full writeup for details

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Python Bridge

• Fix unsalted hashlist support
• Fix the esalt structure, it was too large
• Improve support from 1:1 password-to-hash to 1:N password-to-hashes
• Improve stand-alone debugging of Python Bridge stubs
• See full writeup for details

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This release was made possible thanks to the work of the hashcat community.

We appreciate the time, skill, and testing effort that went into it and especially from those submitting fixes, reporting bugs, and helping improve portability.

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Welcome to hashcat v7.0.0!

We're proud to announce the release of hashcat v7.0.0, the result of over two years of development, hundreds of features and fixes, and a complete refactor of several key components. This version also includes all accumulated changes from the v6.2.x minor releases.

This release is huge. If you have 30 minutes, here's the writeup: Full Release Notes and detailed writeup

Here's a quick summary:

• Over 900,000 lines of code changed
• Contributions from 105 developers, including 74 first-time contributors
• Merged and documented all previously unannounced 6.2.x features

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Major New Features

• Assimilation Bridge: Integrate external resources like CPUs, FPGAs, embedded interpreters, and more into the cracking pipeline.
• Python Bridge Plugin: Rapidly implement hash-matching logic in Python. No recompilation needed, supports multithreading and rule engine by default.
• Virtual Backend Devices: Internally partitions physical GPUs into multiple logical devices for better bridge integration and async workloads.
• Hash-Mode Autodetection: Omit the -m flag and let Hashcat detect the hash-mode, or use --identify to list possibilities.
• Docker Build Support: Build Hashcat in a fully containerized, cross-platform environment, including cross-compilation to Windows.

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New Algorithm Support

• 58 new application-specific hash types, including Argon2, MetaMask, Microsoft Online Account, SNMPv3, GPG, OpenSSH, and LUKS2
• 17 new generic hash constructions used in real-world web apps and protocols
• 11 new primitives added to the crypto library, improving reuse and plugin development
• 20 new tools to extract hashes from popular sources, including APFS, Virtualbox, BitLocker, and various wallet formats

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Performance Improvements

• Complete refactor of the autotuning engine for better device utilization
• Major rewrite of memory management to eliminate previous 4GB allocation caps and enable full memory usage across devices
• Improved tuning for hash-modes like NTLM, NetNTLMv2, and RAR3
• Updated tuning database entries and lower overhead for multi-device setups
• Optimizations to several individual hash-modes including:
  • scrypt: up to +320%
  • RAR3: up to +54%
  • NetNTLMv2: +223% (Intel)

Full Benchmark Spreadsheet

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New and Updated Backends

• HIP (AMD): First-class support for AMD's HIP backend, now preferred over OpenCL when both are available
• Metal (Apple): Native GPU support on macOS using Metal, including full Apple Silicon compatibility and major speed improvements

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Plugin and Developer Changes

• Improved diagnostics, tokenizer control, and debugging options
• New reusable infrastructure for integrating algorithms directly into both modules and kernels
• Expanded test coverage, edge-case detection, and cross-platform compatibility improvements

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Rule Engine Enhancements

• Support for new character class logic and rejection rules, increasing rule engine flexibility
• Refactored and cleaned up rule logic to improve reliability
• Several commonly used rule files have been optimized and expanded

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Additional Improvements

• Mask engine now supports 8 custom charsets (-5 to -8)
• Status screen improvements: better kernel info, new keybind support, improved quiet mode
• New output formats: JSON support added to status and info commands
• Improved benchmark defaults: better masks, longer duration, more consistent output
• Updated 3rd-party dependencies and build fixes across all platforms
• Added handling for compressed wordlists and better I/O error recovery
• False-positive mitigation improvements across multiple formats

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Bug Fixes

• Resolved memory allocation and buffer size issues across backends
• Fixed bugs in output handling, restore files, and mask parsing
• Corrected behavior for complex attack modes under edge conditions
• Fixed missing or broken hash extractions for multiple formats
• Eliminated false negatives in rare multihash cases

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Final Words

This release was made possible thanks to the work of the hashcat community. We appreciate the time, skill, and testing effort that went into it especially from those submitting fixes, reporting bugs, and helping improve portability.

While some parts took longer than expected, we believe the result is worth the wait. We're excited to see what the community builds on top of it. If you run into any issues, let us know on GitHub or better yet, send a fix. Thanks for your continued support.