AT&T Tech Support 360November 2, 2007 9:32 AM PDT
Security Bites Podcast: Cracking passwords
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Security researcher says "CPUs can 'crack' passwords 8 times faster than they can 'check' the passwords"--and we're not even talking about dual-core PCs.
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This week Robert Vamosi spoke with Robert Graham, CEO of Errata Security, about passwords.
Much has been written about the importance of using strong passwords. For example, you don't want to use common words or predictable names. You want a mix of characters and numbers, even symbols. You want something that's easy for you to remember, but hard for a criminal hacker to figure out.
But how exactly do computers store passwords--and, more to the point, how do computers--and criminal hackers--go about either confirming or guessing your password? The process involves algorithms, hashes, and instruction sets.
When computers were simpler, stepping through the process of checking one password would be enough for most computers. But Graham started thinking about the various ways instructions could be distributed and processed in parallel. On his blog recently, he made a surprising statement: "Today's CPUs can 'crack' passwords 8 times faster than they can 'check' the passwords." And we're not even talking about dual-core PCs.
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