WiFi password cracking with ATI and NVIDIA

By Davey Winder
Thursday, 15 January 2009 17:10

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WiFi encryption has just got even less secure now that the Russians reckon you can crack WPA and WPA2 passwords with both ATI and NVIDIA graphics cards.

Back in October last year I reported how a Russian software company had developed a product to accelerate the recovery of both WPA and WPA2 encryption passwords that are used for WiFi security.

The twist in the tale of that particular story was that the technique employed the latest NVIDIA video cards coupled with some patent-pending GPU acceleration technology.

Now the same members of the Russian Cryptology Association, ElcomSoft, which has been providing products and computer forensics training and evidence consulting services to law enforcement, military and intelligence agencies have upped the stakes.

ElcomSoft has released new software called the Wireless Security Auditor which is even more problematical than the Distributed Password Recovery software that went before. Indeed, the ElcomSoft press release boast it will "crack Wi-Fi passwords faster than ever before"

The British Police might be interested in taking a look, seeing as they are getting into the WiFi hacking game themselves.

But I digress, the secret ingredient this time around would appear to that the software can take advantage not just of NVIDIA GeForce 8, 9 or 200 series graphics cards but the ATI HD series as well.

In addition to compatible ATI and NVIDIA cards, ElcomSoft Wireless Security Auditor supports industrial-grade NVIDIA Quadro accelerators and Tesla desktop supercomputers as well.

ElcomSoft tell me that the software also comes with new-generation GPU acceleration algorithms which will "speed up the recovery several hundred times when compatible ATI or NVIDIA video cards are installed."

So how does it work and what are the security implications? More on page 2...

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