We received some great feedback on the original article about attacking master passwords of several popular password managers. In one discussion, our benchmark numbers for 1Password were questioned. We had no choice but to re-run the benchmarks and publish an updated chart along with some technical details and explanations. We bring our apologies to AgileBits, the developers of 1Password, for letting the wrong number creep in to our benchmark. Can we still break into 1Password by attacking the master password? Please bear with us for up-to-date information and detailed technical discussion.

We’ve just updated Elcomsoft Distributed Password Recovery with the ability to break master passwords protecting encrypted vaults of the four popular password keepers: 1Password, KeePass, LastPass and Dashlane. In this article, we’ll talk about security of today’s password managers, and provide insight on what exactly we did and how to break in to encrypted vaults. (more…)

Cloud services such as Amazon EC2 can quickly deliver additional computing power on demand. Amazon’s recent introduction of the a type of EC2 Compute Units made this proposition much more attractive than ever before. With Elcomsoft Distributed Password Recovery now supporting Amazon’s new P2 instances, each with up to 16 GPU units, users can get as much speed as they need the moment they need. In this article, we’ll discuss the benefits of using cloud compute units for password recovery, and provide a step-by-step guide on how to add virtual instances to Elcomsoft Distributed Password Recovery. (more…)

According to surveys, the average English-speaking consumer maintains around 27 online accounts. Memorizing 27 unique, cryptographically secure passwords is nearly impossible for a person one could reasonably call “average”. As a result, the average person tends to reuse passwords, which means that a single password (or its simple variations) can be used to protect multiple online accounts and services. The same passwords are very likely to be chosen to protect access to offline resources such as encrypted archives and documents. In fact, several independent researches published between 2012 and 2016 suggest that between 59 and 61 per cent of consumers reuse passwords.

Investigators start seeing BitLocker encrypted volumes more and more often, yet computer users themselves may be genuinely unaware of the fact they’ve been encrypting their disk all along. How can you break into BitLocker encryption? Do you have to brute-force the password, or is there a quick hack to exploit?

BitLocker is a popular full-disk encryption scheme employed in all versions of Windows (but not in every edition) since Windows Vista. BitLocker is used to protect stationary and removable volumes against outside attacks. Since Windows 8, BitLocker is activated by default on compatible devices if the administrative account logs in with Microsoft Account credentials. BitLocker protection is extremely robust, becoming a real roadblock for digital forensics.

We’ve recently updated Elcomsoft Distributed Password Recovery, adding enhanced GPU-assisted recovery for many supported formats. In a word, the new release adds GPU-accelerated recovery for OS X keychain, triples BitLocker recovery speeds, improves W-Fi password recovery and enhances GPU acceleration support for Internet Key Exchange (IKE).

Anyone considering the possibility to purchase Elcomsoft Distributed Password Recovery has a wonderful opportunity to explore the program together with Sethioz and get a clearer understanding of how the program works and what requires your special attention when you are using EDPR. This video assumes you are already familiar with basics of password cracking and suggests more information for your convenient work with the tool.

If you care about password cracking, hardware acceleration or Wi-Fi protection this interview with our friend Sethioz is certainly for you. Being currently a freelance security tester Sethioz kindly shared his experience in cracking passwords using video cards, which in its turn derived from his gaming interest in cards. His personal experience may be very helpful to those whose concern about password cracking is not trivial.