Publication Details
Distributed password cracking with BOINC and hashcat
Zobal Lukáš, Ing.
Ryšavý Ondřej, doc. Ing., Ph.D. (DIFS)
Kolář Dušan, doc. Dr. Ing. (DIFS)
hashcat, BOINC, cracking, distributed computing, GPGPU
Considering today's challenges in digital forensics, for password cracking,
distributed computing is a necessity. If we limit the selection of
password-cracking tools strictly to open-source software, hashcat tool
unambiguously wins in speed, repertory of supported hash formats, updates, and
community support. Though hashcat itself is by design a single-machine solution,
its interface makes it possible to use the tool as a base construction block of
a larger distributed system. Creating a "distributed hashcat" which supports the
maximum of hashcat's original features requires a smart controller that employs
different distribution strategies in different cases. In the paper, we show how
to use BOINC framework to control a network of hashcat-equipped nodes and provide
a working solution for performing different cracking attacks. We also provide
experimental results of multiple cracking tasks to demonstrate the applicability
of our approach. Last but not least, we compare our solution to an existing
hashcat-based distributed tool - Hashtopolis.
@article{BUT159967,
author="Radek {Hranický} and Lukáš {Zobal} and Ondřej {Ryšavý} and Dušan {Kolář}",
title="Distributed password cracking with BOINC and hashcat",
journal="Digital Investigation",
year="2019",
volume="30",
number="1",
pages="161--172",
doi="10.1016/j.diin.2019.08.001",
issn="1742-2876",
url="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1742287619301446"
}