PS3s Crack Passwords 100x Faster than PCs

By Greg McNevin

November 29, 2007: It was bound to happen eventually with all the superlatives being thrown around about its number crunching prowess, but Sony’s PS3 has finally had its password cracking capabilities put to the test, with unsurprising results.

Nick Breese, a New Zealand-based security researcher with Security-assessment.com put the console to the test, discovering that it can break passwords 100 times faster than previously possible.

When the PS2 was released all those years ago now, its hardware managed to stir up controversy due to its potential military “supercomputing” capabilities, however, up until now the PS3 has been making headlines for its cloud-computing applications such as Folding@home and most recently, the health project PS3Grid.

As the PS3’s Cell processor is optimised for rapid 3D calculations, it is highly suited to brute force password hacks as it cuts down the amount of time needed to try every password combination. Breese says that a network of eight PS3s can crack a eight-character password in a few days rather than the few weeks regular computers require.

Due to the PS3’s low price point (as opposed to comparable CPU power in normal PCs) and programming flexibility (it can have Linux installed on it for one), stringing together a number of machines dedicated to cracking is also a lot more achievable. A formidable array could be put together for a few thousand dollars.

While this may translate to an increase in risk for low-level passwords on files such as PDFs and ZIPs (which could be cracked with amazing speeds), more sophisticated security systems, such as the encryption found in banking transactions, remains secure as developers had the foresight to adhere to Moore’s law in the design phase.

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