Via Game|Life, a story on The Age site suggests that password crackers are really enjoying their PlayStation 3s ... and not because Ratchet is a great game. An NZ-based security researcher stated at a local security conference that the supercomputing power of the PS3 is being put to more nefarious uses than Folding@home. "Speed is important to "brute force" password cracking, which relies on guessing all possible combinations of the characters that make up the password. The accelerated technique means passwords protecting Office, PDF, ZIP and Lotus Notes ID files can be cracked with breathtaking speed. However, many other password types are handled more securely in software and remain unaffected by Breese's claimed speed increase." Sony does have some good news this week, though. Either the holiday season or a price drop here in the states has led to a massive sales increase.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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