- Jun 9, 2013
- 6,720
L0pht Holdings released a completely revamped L0phtCrack 7, which includes a new cracking engine which takes optimal advantage of multi-core CPUs and multi-core GPUs.
A 4-core CPU running a brute force audit with L0phtCrack 7 is now 5 times faster than L0phtCrack 6. If you have a GPU such as the AMD Radeon Pro Duo the speedup is an astounding 500 times.
L0phtCrack was first released 19 years ago. Its password cracking capability forced Microsoft to make improvements to the way Windows stored password hashes. Microsoft eventually deprecated the weak LANMAN password hash and switched to only the stronger NTLM password hash it still uses today. Yet, hardware and password cracking algorithms have improved greatly in the intervening years.
The new release of L0phtCrack 7 demonstrates that current Windows passwords are easier to crack today than they were 18 years ago when Microsoft started making much needed password strength improvements.
On a circa-1998 computer with a Pentium II 400 MHz CPU, the original L0phtCrack could crack a Windows NT, 8 character long alphanumeric password in 24 hours. On a 2016 gaming machine, at less hardware cost, L0phtCrack 7 can crack the same passwords stored on the latest Windows 10 in 2 hours. Windows passwords have become much less secure over time and are now much more easily cracked than in the era of Windows NT. Other OSes, such as Linux, offer much more secure password hashing, including the NSA recommended SHA-512.
Full Article. L0phtCrack 7 audits passwords up to 500 times faster - Help Net Security
A 4-core CPU running a brute force audit with L0phtCrack 7 is now 5 times faster than L0phtCrack 6. If you have a GPU such as the AMD Radeon Pro Duo the speedup is an astounding 500 times.
L0phtCrack was first released 19 years ago. Its password cracking capability forced Microsoft to make improvements to the way Windows stored password hashes. Microsoft eventually deprecated the weak LANMAN password hash and switched to only the stronger NTLM password hash it still uses today. Yet, hardware and password cracking algorithms have improved greatly in the intervening years.
The new release of L0phtCrack 7 demonstrates that current Windows passwords are easier to crack today than they were 18 years ago when Microsoft started making much needed password strength improvements.
On a circa-1998 computer with a Pentium II 400 MHz CPU, the original L0phtCrack could crack a Windows NT, 8 character long alphanumeric password in 24 hours. On a 2016 gaming machine, at less hardware cost, L0phtCrack 7 can crack the same passwords stored on the latest Windows 10 in 2 hours. Windows passwords have become much less secure over time and are now much more easily cracked than in the era of Windows NT. Other OSes, such as Linux, offer much more secure password hashing, including the NSA recommended SHA-512.
Full Article. L0phtCrack 7 audits passwords up to 500 times faster - Help Net Security
