PS3 used to crack passwords, dubbed Crackstation

by Nick Doerr { Nov 30th 2007 at 10:45AM }

Let's add another function onto the list of things the PS3 can do -- this one, however, isn't something we'd really like advertised. It's almost scary. Security-assessment.com senior security consultant Nick Breese has been using a PS3 to hack passwords and such. Apparently using a PS3 drastically increases the processing capability to do so, using the most basic of hacking tools -- brute force.

By brute force we mean it just tries every combination of numbers and letters incredibly fast. The old upper limit of vector computing using common ciphers and hash functions was around 10-15 million cycles per second, but with the PS3, this has moved to around 1.4 billion cycles per second. That's really about all we're going to dive into. If you want to read about the complex workings of the "Crackstation" project, feel free, but don't go trying this stuff at home!

[via Digg]

Tags: crackstation

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

cabrito @ Nov 30th 2007 11:16AM

That is valid for any scientific processor too! Your video card is very good with numbers, so if you could use that directly, like you use a PS3, you would get good results too.

That only shows the PS3 is nothing but a Super Computer in your leaving room :)

cabrito @ Nov 30th 2007 11:19AM

BTW,
my lovely dark beast is being delivered to me any time soon, and I do plan using it for number crushing processing throught folding@home!

Nash @ Nov 30th 2007 11:16AM

Ahhh, Hackers...my first foray into using the old DVD players frame by frame feature to slow down a movie after thinking "Was that a nipple!?" Good times. And yes, it was.

Macrike @ Nov 30th 2007 11:35AM

OMG, you just read my mind! I love that film. I could watch it over, and over again. ^_^

Akamaru @ Nov 30th 2007 1:23PM

Yeah. Big win for Nick on the Angelina pic.

Nate @ Nov 30th 2007 11:31AM

Classic movie, if you can just ignore the visuals on the hacking sequences, it's actually pretty good.

Nate @ Nov 30th 2007 12:33PM

"Breese says the initial reason for embarking on the research project was to get the company to buy him a PS3."

Haha, awesome.

And yeah, Hackers is a great movie. You just have to ignore the visuals they throw up while hacking, and it's fine.

Eddie @ Nov 30th 2007 12:43PM

And you thought you had to wait for MGS4 to unlock the true potential of the PS3!

How long before updates are released to limit this functionality? I'm not too familiar with the process, can there even be firmware modifications to limit this?

Brendan Brown @ Nov 30th 2007 3:07PM

It's simple algorithms running on a copy of linux installed on the PS3.

Thinking Sony would release a firmware update to prevent this would be akin to thinking Sony would release a firmware update to prevent somebody from beating another man to death with a physical PS3 console.

Hobofuzz @ Nov 30th 2007 12:59PM

Brute Force "hacking" (since you can't really call guessing hacking) is one of the easiest things to prevent. A system that simply blocks any further password attempts after a certain number of failures can stop a brute force attack. Most forum software does this, and this method is also being adopted by more and more websites each day. This is hardly something to worry about.