PDF Crack Time Calculator
Select the encryption mode, password length, character set and GPU cluster size to estimate how long a password search would take. Treat the output as an order of magnitude.
Estimated candidate-search time
18.0 minutes
- Candidates to test
- 308.9 million
- Illustrative rate
- 38 K H/s per GPU × 8 GPUs
- Search space
- 26 ^ 6 = 308 915 776
Throughputs here are illustrative order-of-magnitude figures, not a measured benchmark. Real dictionary and rule attacks usually finish far sooner than a brute-force estimate, and real hardware varies with driver, memory and thermal limits.
How to interpret these estimates
Dictionary attacks test common patterns first. The estimates above are worst-case brute-force times. A responsible assessment starts with owner-provided clues and a bounded dictionary or rule-based search. Coverage varies by language, password pattern, hardware and the exact PDF revision.
Mode 10400 (40-bit RC4) is a finite-key candidate. If your PDF uses 40-bit RC4, key-space analysis may replace ordinary password guessing. The exact file variant, implementation, hardware and verification result still determine the route and timeline.
More hardware changes the candidate budget. Multi-GPU throughput depends on the algorithm, implementation, memory, thermal limits and scheduling. Treat calculator output as an estimate, not a delivery promise.
Real-world factors can change the estimate materially. PDF 2.0 documents with increased SHA-256 derivation rounds reduce throughput. GPU driver version, memory bandwidth and parallelisation overhead also affect actual speeds.
Hashcat benchmark reference
| Hashcat mode | Encryption | Speed (RTX 5090) |
|---|---|---|
| 10400 | PDF 1.1-1.3 RC4 40-bit (key search) | 1,100,000,000 H/s |
| 10500 | PDF 1.4-1.6 RC4 128-bit | 9,800,000 H/s |
| 10600 | PDF 1.6+ AES-128 | 75,000 H/s |
| 10700 | PDF 1.7+ AES-256 (50-round KDF) | 38,000 H/s |
Benchmarks from Hashcat v6.3 on NVIDIA RTX 5090, early 2026. Actual speeds vary by driver version and system configuration.
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