This is really surprising that the powerful processors in Sony’ PlayStation 3 gaming console now have another use that is cracking passwords. I am not joking; PlayStation3 is really great asset for hackers to crack passwords.
Hacker Security-Assessment.com security consultant Nick Breese claimed that the Sony PlayStation 3 with its Cell processors can crack passwords 300 times greater than Intel hardware is capable of. He presented his new report at the Kiwicon hacker conference in Wellington, New Zealand. He claimed that speed is the most important factor in ‘brute force’ password cracking.
He implemented common ciphers and hash functions with the use of vector computing. Nick pushed the current upper limit of 10–15 million cycles per second, while in Intel-based architecture; he pushed current up to 1.4 billion cycles per second. Breese, who has been working on the project, called “Crackstation“, for the past six months, used the Sony PlayStation 3 gaming console for his break-through research. IBM, Toshiba and Sony created the PS3’s cell broadband engine technology.
The companies collaborated together to create a Cell, a processor which consists of one scalar processor and eight vector processors. He reported that the design of PS3 is very suitable for cryptography. While Intel processors are designed to do all kinds of complex calculations, whereas the PS3 is good at doing simple things very quickly.
Breese is hoping that his report will encourage software-makers to increase their password security.
Image: PS3 Informer
