What is Hydra?

Hydra is an open-source tool that can perform rapid dictionary attacks against more than 50 protocols. It was developed by the hacker group “The Hacker’s Choice” in 2000 as a proof of concept to demonstrate how easy it is to exploit weak passwords on network services.

Hydra sends multiple login requests to a target service with different username and password combinations until it finds a valid pair. Hydra can also support parallel connections, which means it can try multiple passwords simultaneously, reducing the time required to crack a password.

Hydra supports various protocols and services, such as:

Telnet

FTP

HTTP

HTTPS

SMB

Databases

SSH

SMTP

POP3

IMAP

VNC

RDP

And many more

How to Install Hydra

Hydra comes pre-installed with Kali Linux and Parrot OS, which are popular operating systems for penetration testing and ethical hacking. If you use one of them, you can start using Hydra immediately.

On Ubuntu, you can install Hydra using the apt package manager:

$ apt install hydra

On Mac, you can install Hydra using Homebrew:

$ brew install hydra

If you are using Windows, you can either use a virtual machine to run Linux or download the Windows version of Hydra

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