Using Graphics Cards for Password Cracking – Software Breaks Encryption up to 45x Faster
Passware has creatively re-purposed graphic processing (GPU) cards for a new and most certainly unintended task: cracking difficult passwords. The password recovery and decryption software company claims that its recently announced Passware Kit 10.1 is the first commercially available software to crack passwords for the most difficult-to-decrypt file types – RAR archives and TrueCrypt hard disks – using a processing boost from commonly available GPU cards such as those offered by NVIDIA, which are found on most laptops and desktop computers.
Law enforcement organizations, government agencies and private investigators will now be able to break strong encryption much faster – as much as 45 times for TrueCrypt disks and 10 times faster for strong RAR 3 archives, with speeds of more than 2,500 passwords per second using just a single FERMI card by NVIDIA.
Passware Kit can support multiple cards simultaneously, which further enhances password recovery time.
The current version of Passware Kit builds upon its ability to accelerate distributed password recovery using both GPUs and Tableau TACC1441 hardware.
Passware Kit 10.1 is available now from Passware and an expanded network of resellers in the U.S., Europe, and Asia, as well as recently-added Australia, New Zealand, China and South Korea. The manufacturer’s suggested price for Forensic edition starts at $795 with one year of free updates.