New Cain & Abel

The latest version of Cain & Abel (a password-retrieving program that covers the services of multiple hacking applications into a single freeware tool) has just been released.

As a password retrieval freeware program made exclusively for the Windows platform, Cain & Abel is among the best of its kind.

It's an application that should always be a part of any IT professional or administrator's software toolkit.

Its ability to easily uncover lost or forgotten passwords by analyzing routing protocols, uncovering cached passwords, revealing password boxes, decoding scrambled passwords, using the brute force method or dictionaries to crack encrypted passwords, and sniffing the network is nearly second to none.

The many iterations of Cain & Abel is currently pushing the boundaries of password recovery, and the Cain & Abel 4.9.34 continues the software series' tradition of excellence by catering to its many different target audiences—that is, professional penetration testers, security software vendors, forensic staff, security experts, teachers, network administrators, and everyone else that intend to use it for purposes that aren't morally questionable.

At any rate, the changes in this version of the program are as follows:

  • It now has support for x64 platforms in Dial-Up Password Decoder, Wireless Password Decoder, LSA Secrets Dumper, MS-CACHE Hashes Dumper, Credential Manager Password Decoder, and NTLM Hashes Dumper.
  • It also includes support in APR-RDP sniffer filter

  • for the Windows 2008 Terminal Server.

  • It presently features a new Windows Live Mail Password Decoder that works with LDAP, SMTP, NNTP, IMAP, and POP3 accounts.
  • The developers have added Abel64 files in both ".dll" and ".exe" forms to provide extra compatibility for x64-based hash extraction.
  • They have corrected a security glitch in the sniffer filter made for APR-SSL in order to prevent 100% utilization of CPU resources while you're sending data.
  • They have fixed the RSA SecurID Calculator vulnerability within the XML import feature.
  • They rebuilt the Visual Studio 2008 executeable as well.

From the very start, the developers of Cain & Abel were concentrated on fixing long-lifetime bugs only.

They wanted to create a program that will prove to be continually useful to administrators and users over time, which is the reason why they deliberately avoided adding features to the program that specifically targets zero-day vulnerabilities and other coding glitches (a popular tactic of password crackers used by hackers) that are easily removable via patches and fixes.