title: Tools to detect when a weak encryption algorithm is being used
body: <p>Every time I've joined a new company I've found that there is an in-house encryption algorithm in place to work with passwords and such. And every time it's just some kind of substitution cipher method. Apparently people think that an in-house algorithm must be safer just because it is custom.</p>
  
  <p>Anyway, I once met a guy who was doing security consulting in one of these companies and by using one of his tools he had no problem cracking one of the passwords to get into our system. Do you know of specific tools that can do this? I'd love to show my current coworkers just how easy it is to break these types of algorithms.</p>