https://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9227894/How_Charles_Dickens_helped_crack_your_LinkedIn_password By Jeremy Kirk IDG News Service June 8, 2012 Kevin Young, a computer security expert who studies passwords, is nearly at a loss for words. Literally. Young and his colleagues are working to decode some 2.6 million scrambled LinkedIn passwords, part of a total of 6.1 million released earlier this week on a Russian password cracking forum. Young studies how people pick passwords and how resistant they are to cracking. The data that was released were password hashes, or cryptographic representations of passwords churned through an algorithm called SHA-1. For example, if a person's password is "Rover" the SHA-1 hash would be "ac54ed2d6c6c938bb66c63c5d0282e9332eed72c." Converting those hashes into their original passwords is possible using decoding tools and powerful graphics processors. But the longer and more complicated the password -- using sprinklings of capital letters, numbers and symbols -- the longer and harder it is to crack. What's interesting about the LinkedIn hashes is the trouble experts are having at converting the hashes to their original password. Of the 6.1 million hashes, some 3.5 million appeared to have already been cracked since those hashes have "00000" at the beginning. [...] -- Certified Ethical Hacker, ISSMP, ISSAP, CISSP training with Expanding Security gives the best training and support. Get a free live class invite weekly. Best programs, best prices. http://www.ExpandingSecurity.com/PainPillReceived on Mon Jun 11 2012 - 01:29:36 PDT
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