Windows Wi-Fi vulnerability discovered

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Try a distributed Beowolf setup

If you try crunching with a multi-node Beowolf parallel distributed network setup (with a special software application that only runs on a Beowolf system...that I will not mention here...most IT security professionals and hackers in general know about it), you can drastically shorten the amount of time to crack the encrption key. (The Beowolf setup originated at Los Alamos National Labratory.)

In the lab, with 256 machine setup in 16node networks, a 1024bit PGP encryption key was cracked in a little more than 8 minutes. The machines were old 200mhz Pentium systems.

If you used modern 64bit hardware architecture running at 2+ghz and enough RAM, you could have a similar system using VM's and much fewer physical systems.

The key to success, pun intended, is to sniff enough data packets to expose the random-number generator flaw of either the OS or the hardware. The higher the volume of data traffic, the faster the key can be uncovered. As you increase the size of the encryption key, the longer the packet stream will be before the random-numbers begins to repeat themselves.

Posted by: cburgess-iPALADIN   Posted on: 01/21/06 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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