From the ‘Well, shit.’ Dept.

The bottom line here is that Elcomsoft has figured out a way to use video cards to crack passwords using brute force faster than ever before. This quote from the article sums up the situation:

Using an $800 graphics card from nVidia called the GeForce 8800 Ultra, Elcomsoft increased the speed of its password cracking by a factor of 25, according to the company’s CEO, Vladimir Katalov.

The toughest passwords, including those used to log in to a Windows Vista computer, would normally take months of continuous computer processing time to crack using a computer’s central processing unit (CPU). By harnessing a $150 GPU – less powerful than the nVidia 8800 card – Elcomsoft says they can cracked in just three to five days. Less complex passwords can be retrieved in minutes, rather than hours or days.

Brute force attacks just gained a little more credibility. My headline sums up my immediate reaction. I need to think about this one some more.

Password-cracking chip causes security concerns - tech - 24 October 2007 - New Scientist Tech