WPA cracking for $35 from the cloud

[wvjohn]

There was a pen tester at the conference last year who did a home-brew version of this....


http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12/07 ... _cracking/

Service cracks wireless passwords from the cloud

135 million words in 20 minutes

By Dan Goodin in San Francisco • Get more from this author

Posted in Security, 7th December 2009 22:30 GMT


A security researcher has unveiled a low-cost service for penetration testers that checks the security of wireless networks by running passwords against a 135-million-word dictionary.

The WPA Cracker is a cloud-based service that accesses a 400-CPU cluster. For $34, it can run a password against all 135 million entries in about 20 minutes. Those willing to wait 40 minutes can pay $17 to access the system at half mode.

In addition to operating in the cloud, the service is also notable because its dictionary has been set up specifically for cracking Wi-Fi Protected Access passwords. While Windows, Unix and other systems allow short passwords, WPA pass codes must contain a minimum of eight characters. Its entries use a variety of words, common phrases and "elite speak" that have been compiled with WPA networks in mind.

WPA Cracker is used by capturing a wireless network's handshake locally and then uploading it, along with the network name. The service then compares the PBKDF2, or Password-Based Key Derivation Function, against the dictionary. The approach makes sense, considering each handshake is salted using the network's ESSID, a technique that makes rainbow tables only so useful.

WPA Cracker is being launched by researcher Moxie Marlinspike. More about the service is here. ®