Security Analyst – Jeff Soehner CISSP, GXPN,GPYC,GMOB,GCIH

I have been busy at a new job lately and have not had any time to contribute. I found myself so busy in fact that I had purchased some hardware for a new hash killer and did not even open it for several months. I thought this was as good a time as any to create a writeup on how to make your own hash crack computer.

For anyone who was late to the party – Bitcoin mining could be done by creating a computer similar to the one used below but the cost associated with mining your own Bitcoin has gone up making it cost prohibitive. Here is a great way to put those computers to work for you as a security professional / bad guy by cracking passwords.

Using four graphics cards that can be purchased for approx. 400.00 each, any average hacker could build him/herself a password cracking computer that could brute force your passwords.

Firstly, I used a MSI Z170A Motherboard with four PCI-E slots (first one is x8 and the other 3 run x4). This is fine because the real power comes from the GPU on the graphics cards and passes back to the bus at normal speeds. Next we add a i3 (6100) and some Ram (4x4G). We put it in a nice case with 5 x 120mm fans to circulate the heat (the GPUs will create a lot of heat and can shutdown if you don’t remove the heat from the area). Finally we need a power supply to power all four of the GPUs so I purchased a 1300w EVGA all for a total of approx. 3,000.00 (YMMV).

Approaching speeds of almost 60 billion guesses per second, any mortal could destroy a 9 character Windows password that used ANY combination of upper, lower, number or special characters in about an hour.

It’s as easy as using a free, opensource operating system like Ubuntu and loading some additional software to create your own computer that you *could* use to mine Bitcoin but you could probably make more money cracking hashes for profit!