cewl

Cewl (pronounced cool) is a command-line tool used for generating custom wordlists by spidering a target website or document. Developed in Ruby, it scans HTML pages and extracts all the unique words encountered. Cewl is particularly useful for password cracking and penetration testing purposes, as it helps in creating wordlists based on the specific target domain or content. Using cewl, one can easily spider a website and generate a wordlist containing all the unique words found on that site. The tool also enables the creation of wordlists from documents by parsing the provided file and extracting words from it. Cewl supports options like specifying the minimum/maximum length of words, excluding certain words, specifying a minimum occurrence frequency, and setting a depth limit for spidering. It can be utilized to perform targeted brute-force attacks, password strength analysis, and to test the effectiveness of various security measures. Cewl allows for efficient customization of wordlists based on the specific needs of an assessment, thereby enhancing the success rate of password cracking attempts. The flexibility of cewl enables it to be utilized with other tools in the penetration tester’s toolkit to strengthen their testing and auditing capabilities. Cewl is licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL) and is available for free on various platforms including Linux, macOS, and Windows.