How to identify and crack a GPG / OpenPGP private key hash

GPG / OpenPGP private key is a application hash type. It is fast and typically unsalted, which makes weak passwords recoverable quickly on consumer GPU hardware. This page shows how to recognise it and the exact commands to attack it.

All identification runs locally in WebAssembly. The commands below write the hash to a local file on your machine — nothing is sent to this site.

Identifying the hash

The hash identifier on the home page detects GPG / OpenPGP private key entirely in your browser — your hash is never uploaded. A typical example looks like this:

$gpg$*1*668*2048*e2b055d8...

Cracking GPG / OpenPGP private key with hashcat

Save the hash to a file and run hashcat in mode -m 17010. Start with a wordlist such as rockyou.txt:

echo '$gpg$*1*668*2048*e2b055d8...' > hash.txt && hashcat -m 17010 hash.txt /usr/share/wordlists/rockyou.txt

Add a rule set to mutate dictionary words (capitalisation, leetspeak, appended digits) and dramatically widen coverage:

echo '$gpg$*1*668*2048*e2b055d8...' > hash.txt && hashcat -m 17010 hash.txt /usr/share/wordlists/rockyou.txt -r /usr/share/hashcat/rules/best64.rule

Cracking GPG / OpenPGP private key with John the Ripper

John the Ripper can attack the same hash with the gpg format:

echo '$gpg$*1*668*2048*e2b055d8...' > hash.txt && john --format=gpg --wordlist=/usr/share/wordlists/rockyou.txt hash.txt