Wordlists and Wordlist Generation

3 min readArticle

A wordlist (dictionary) is a file with one password candidate per line. The quality of your wordlist directly determines your cracking success. rockyou.txt is your starting point, but targeted custom wordlists often crack things that generic lists miss.

Standard Wordlists

bash

# Kali pre-installed
/usr/share/wordlists/rockyou.txt        # 14M passwords, leaked from RockYou breach
/usr/share/wordlists/fasttrack.txt      # Common passwords
/usr/share/wordlists/dirb/common.txt    # Web directory brute force
/usr/share/seclists/                    # SecLists — comprehensive collection

# Install SecLists (if not present)
sudo apt install seclists
ls /usr/share/seclists/Passwords/

# Download rockyou if compressed
gunzip /usr/share/wordlists/rockyou.txt.gz

Custom Wordlist Tools

Tool	What It Does	Best For
cewl-custom-wordlist-generator	Scrapes target website for words	Target-specific vocabulary
wyd	Personal info mutations	Known-target attacks
crunch-wordlist-generator	Pattern/charset generation	Specific formats
rsmangler-wordlist-mangler	Mangles existing wordlists	Expanding known words
Hashcat rules	Apply transformations during cracking	Any wordlist
Mentalist	GUI wordlist builder	Visual workflow

Wordlist Building Workflow

bash

# Step 1: Get base words from target website
cewl https://target.com -d 3 -m 5 -w website_words.txt

# Step 2: Add known personal info
echo -e "company\nceo_name\ncity\n2024\n1990" >> website_words.txt

# Step 3: Mangle
rsmangler --file website_words.txt > mangled.txt

# Step 4: Combine with rockyou for WiFi attacks
cat mangled.txt /usr/share/wordlists/rockyou.txt > combined.txt
sort -u combined.txt > final.txt

# Step 5: Attack
hashcat -m 22000 handshake.hc22000 final.txt

Hashcat Rules (Best Force Multiplier)

Rules apply transformations during cracking — no need to pre-generate mutations:

bash

# Available rules
ls /usr/share/hashcat/rules/
best64.rule        # 64 best rules, good starting point
d3ad0ne.rule       # More comprehensive
dive.rule          # Very comprehensive, slow
OneRuleToRuleThemAll.rule  # Popular community rule

# Apply rules
hashcat -m 1000 hashes.txt rockyou.txt -r best64.rule
hashcat -m 1000 hashes.txt rockyou.txt -r d3ad0ne.rule

# Stack multiple rules
hashcat -m 1000 hashes.txt rockyou.txt -r best64.rule -r toggles1.rule

Custom Rules (Hashcat Rule Syntax)

shell

# Common rule operators
l    = lowercase all
u    = uppercase all
c    = capitalize
r    = reverse
d    = duplicate
$X   = append X (e.g., $1 appends "1")
^X   = prepend X
sXY  = substitute X with Y (e.g., sa4 replaces a with 4)

bash

# Create custom rule file
cat > custom.rule << 'EOF'
:           # original word
c           # Capitalize
u           # UPPERCASE
$1          # append 1
$!          # append !
c$1         # Capitalize + append 1
sa@         # replace a with @
EOF

hashcat -m 1000 hashes.txt wordlist.txt -r custom.rule

Password Patterns (Know Your Target)

Different environments have different common password patterns:

Corporate environments:

CompanyName + year (CompanyName2024)
Season + year (Summer2024!)
CapitalWord + numbers + special

Home users:

pet names, hobbies, sports teams
Birth years, anniversary dates
Name + year combos

Default credentials to try first:

shell

admin/admin
admin/password
admin/(blank)
admin/1234
root/root
user/user

Useful One-Liners

bash

# Sort and deduplicate a wordlist
sort -u wordlist.txt > clean_wordlist.txt

# Count unique passwords
wc -l wordlist.txt

# Filter by length (e.g., 8-20 chars)
awk 'length >= 8 && length <= 20' rockyou.txt > rockyou_filtered.txt

# Combine multiple lists
cat list1.txt list2.txt list3.txt | sort -u > combined.txt

# Extract passwords from Hashcat potfile
cut -d: -f2 ~/.hashcat/hashcat.potfile > cracked_passwords.txt

# Generate from pattern with Crunch
crunch 8 8 -t Password%%%% > pw_with_digits.txt

Sub-pages

cewl-custom-wordlist-generator — Website wordlist scraper
wyd — Personal info wordlist generator
crunch-wordlist-generator — Pattern-based generation
rsmangler-wordlist-mangler — Wordlist mangling

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