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.)

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

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.