Slashdot Mirror
WPA-PSK Cracking As a Service
An anonymous reader writes "Moxie Marlinspike, a security researcher well known for his SSL/TLS attacks, today launched a cloud-based WPA cracking service, where for $34 you can test the security of your WPA password. The WPA Cracker Web site states: 'WPA-PSK networks are vulnerable to dictionary attacks, but running a respectable-sized dictionary over a WPA network handshake can take days or weeks. WPA Cracker gives you access to a 400CPU cluster that will run your network capture against a 135 million word dictionary created specifically for WPA passwords. While this job would take over 5 days on a contemporary dual-core PC, on our cluster it takes an average of 20 minutes.'"
So for $34 you can make sure your password is part of their dictionary?
I think the tool is not being sold to people wanting to crack into a WiFi network, rather selling to people so that they can test their WiFi network.
$34 to see if your password can survive a dictionary attack? Hell pay me $20 and I'll gladly save you some money and provide you with a password guaranteed to be unbreakable by brute force. I'll even sign an NDA to ensure I don't disclose it to anyone but rest assured even I won't be able to remember it!
Did you ever wake up in the morning, with a Zombie Woof behind your eyes? -- FZ
"Marlinspike declined to say who operates his compute cluster"
I guess he can't come out and say he's using botted boxes, right?
I think the tool is not being sold to people wanting to crack into a WiFi network, rather selling to people so that they can test their WiFi network.
[x] Check this box if you are above the age of 18 and promise not to use this tool for malicious intends.
[BUY NOW!!!]
Alternatively you could actually not be an asshat, get on with your neighbour and negotiate with them (over a 6 pack of beer) to allow legal access in the event of an outage.
Isn't it cheaper, easier, and less douchebaggy to just get an aircard?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Actually, in this case, it's very straightforward. He's using Amazon EC2. EC2 charges by the hour, and all you have to do is spin up the number of servers you want. In fact, I happened to run the numbers on what the costs are for running 50 "8-core" servers, and it happens to be...$34/hour. So, what he did was say, "If I run two jobs an hour, I make a small amount of money. If I run 4-5 jobs per hour, I make more money"
This is, of course, a textbook use case for EC2, and I'm surprised no one has done it sooner.
me@mzi.to
They don't discuss it, but I wonder if they don't just fire up 400 Amazon instances, do the work, then shut them off. For $34 (an oddly specific number), they can't afford to have 400 CPUs around. However, if they allocate on a job-by-job basis, then their overhead is very low.
This kind of work (high computation, high parallelization, infrequent request) might be the most brilliant and non-obvious use of cloud computing. Low overhead due to using someone else's hardware (rather than having 400 CPUs laying around). If this is truely what they are doing, I am very impressed.
For $30 I'll run the command-line random number generator I found on the web and send you a 60 digit number.
If you act today, that's only 50 cents a number!
Believe it or not, there are some embedded devices which don't have the CPU juice for WPA2, so they were given a BIOS update so they can run something better than WEP as some form of security. WPA has its issues, but it sure beats WEP.
The best wireless setup is to have two wireless SSIDs. Your internal one that runs off of WPA2-Enterprise, RADIUS server, and smart cards. Then an external one that has a stern packet filter and throttling mechanism. This way, people can log on your open wireless to check E-mail, but Limewire and other P2P apps will be stopped. Of course, someone can jump that, but if they do that, its not your problem anymore.
I do see one use for MAC address security, and its more of a legal thing than computer protection. If a security breach criminal case winds up in court, and you can prove a potential intruder was bypassing your MAC security, it might land a conviction. Otherwise, someone can make up a story of you allowing people to have your WPA2 passwords, etc.
Living in fear must suck, huh? I have 4 open WiFi networks available to me at the moment (in a subdivision with 1/2-acre lots, not in a dense apartment complex). I've hopped onto a neighbor's network when my phone was out, and I have DHCP logs showing when they've been on mine. If I got hit with a subpoena, it'd be a piece of cake to show how many other people are using my router. That's a lot better approach for me and my neighbors than shutting each other out in a moral panic.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
A medium 'high-cpu' linux instance at Amazon is $0.17/hr.
($0.17/hr) x (20min) x (400 instances) = $22.66666... +50% = exactly $34