Off-the-shelf graphics cards used to crack passwords

Trying to crack a strong password? Look no further than your computer's graphics card. Experts at computer firm UKFast said an nVidia GeForce GT220 card worth £30 (P2,017) can crack "strong" passwords in a matter of hours, tech site Computer Weekly said. "Security experts at UKFast say they were able to crack a six-character password in 12 seconds, a seven-character password in less than five minutes, and an eight-character password in four hours," according to an article on Computer Weekly. The article noted current top-of-the-line graphics cards, which can cost £600 (P40,346), make light work of password cracking. Such hardware can process 10.3 billion passwords per second, the article said. "People have worked out that the processing power of graphics cards, due to the architecture of the chips, is more powerful than a normal processor for doing certain tasks," said Neil Lathwood, IT director at UKFast. Computer Weekly also quoted UKFast security expert Stuart Coulson as saying no one is immune to the damage a weak password can cause. He encouraged the public to make their passwords longer to make it harder for hackers to guess them. "Every extra character makes the hacker's job more difficult because there are so many more possibilities for what that character can be, and the more you can introduce to your password, the safer it is," he said. — TJD, GMA News