GPU cracking

GPU cracking involves using graphics processing units (GPUs) to break encryption and passwords. GPUs are highly effective at this due to their parallel processing capabilities, allowing them to perform many calculations simultaneously.

Key Insights

1. Crypto Mining:

   • Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal from the Acquired discuss how GPUs are used in crypto mining by brute-forcing an encryption scheme, which means rapidly guessing and checking solutions until finding the correct answer. These tasks leverage the massive parallelism of GPUs to perform many guesses simultaneously, making them significantly faster than CPUs for such tasks 1.

2. Password Cracking:

   • Thomas Johnson explains on the Modern Wisdom that traditional brute force methods are inefficient for longer passwords. Instead, rule sets and dictionaries are used. With GPU cracking, tools like Hashcat use the advanced mathematical capabilities of GPUs, vastly speeding up the cracking process compared to CPU-based methods 2.

Practical Tips

• For secure passwords, mnemonic password generation is recommended over common substitutions (e.g., "3" for "e"), which are easily targeted by rule sets during cracking attempts 2.

For more on GPU cracking, you might find these episodes insightful:

• Nvidia Part II: The Machine Learning Company (2006-2022) (Acquired)
• What Is An Ethical Hacker? Thomas Johnson | Modern Wisdom Podcast 105 (Modern Wisdom)

These discussions highlight both the vulnerabilities and cutting-edge techniques in the domain of cryptographic security using GPUs.