Today's powerful video cards may pose security threats

+ GPUs May Threaten Password Systems

Today's video games are evolving fast; they have better graphics, more details, and more realistic physics. To deal with this ever growing demand, more advanced GPU (graphics processing unit) and CPU technologies have to be deployed. Video cards and processors are advancing at a very high rate in order to detail with the system demanding games of today.

Video cards today can process data at speeds of nearly two teraflops, which only 10 years ago was achievable by some of the world's fastest supercomputers. It is crazy to think that just a few years back, the technology to process that much data would cost millions upon millions of dollars, whereas today you only have to spend $300. Although most of these video cards are used to render advanced graphics and effects, researchers at Georgia Tech have found that these advanced pieces of hardware can be utilized for destructive purposes such as password hacking. Since you can now program GPUs in C , you can direct the video card to perform almost any task.

The research team has shown that these multi-cored beasts can be used for brute force password attacks. This means that the GPU can assimilate and try millions of passwords on a host target in that matter of hours .Should we be careful on how fast technology is moving today? Do we need to put more emphasis on security ? I believe so .

Source: http://www.gatech.edu/newsroom/release.html?nid=60485