We're proud to announce the release of hashcat v7.0.0, the result of over two years of development, hundreds of features and fixes, and a complete refactor of several key components. This version also includes all accumulated changes from the v6.2.x minor releases.
HIP (AMD): First-class support for AMD's HIP backend, now preferred over OpenCL when both are available
Metal (Apple): Native GPU support on macOS using Metal, including full Apple Silicon compatibility and major speed improvements
Plugin and Developer Changes
Improved diagnostics, tokenizer control, and debugging options
New reusable infrastructure for integrating algorithms directly into both modules and kernels
Expanded test coverage, edge-case detection, and cross-platform compatibility improvements
Rule Engine Enhancements
Support for new character class logic and rejection rules, increasing rule engine flexibility
Refactored and cleaned up rule logic to improve reliability
Several commonly used rule files have been optimized and expanded
Additional Improvements
Mask engine now supports 8 custom charsets (-5 to -8)
Status screen improvements: better kernel info, new keybind support, improved quiet mode
New output formats: JSON support added to status and info commands
Improved benchmark defaults: better masks, longer duration, more consistent output
Updated 3rd-party dependencies and build fixes across all platforms
Added handling for compressed wordlists and better I/O error recovery
False-positive mitigation improvements across multiple formats
Bug Fixes
Resolved memory allocation and buffer size issues across backends
Fixed bugs in output handling, restore files, and mask parsing
Corrected behavior for complex attack modes under edge conditions
Fixed missing or broken hash extractions for multiple formats
Eliminated false negatives in rare multihash cases
Final Words
This release was made possible thanks to the work of the hashcat community. We appreciate the time, skill, and testing effort that went into it especially from those submitting fixes, reporting bugs, and helping improve portability.
While some parts took longer than expected, we believe the result is worth the wait. We're excited to see what the community builds on top of it. If you run into any issues, let us know on GitHub or better yet, send a fix. Thanks for your continued support.