# Researcher uses Amazon cloud to hack networks



## sjb007 (Dec 10, 2007)

A security researcher says he has figured out a quick and inexpensive way to break a commonly used form of password protection for wireless networks using the Amazon Web Services cloud.

Thomas Roth, a computer security consultant based in Germany, says he can hack into protected networks using specialised software that he has written that runs on Amazon's cloud-based computers. It tests 400,000 potential passwords per second using Amazon's computers.

That leaves businesses as well as home networks prone to attack if they use relatively simple passwords to secure their networks.

Roth will distribute his software to the public and teach people how to use it later this month at the Black Hat hacking conference in the US.

He said he is publicising his research in a bid to convince skeptical network administrators that a commonly used method for scrambling data that travels across Wi-Fi network passwords is not strong enough to keep crafty intruders from breaking in to networks.

That encryption method, dubbed WPA-PSK, scrambles data using a single password. If a potential intruder is able to figure out the password, he or she can gain access to computers and other devices on the network.

Roth said that the networks can be broken into if hackers use enough computer power to "brute force" their way into figuring out the passwords that protect networks.

Those passwords were difficult for the average hacker to break until Amazon.com recently started leasing time on powerful computers at relatively inexpensive rates.

The online retailer charges users 28 cents a minute to use machines that Roth used in his attack, while purchasing the computers outright would cost tens of thousands of dollars.

Roth said that he used his software and Amazon's cloud-based computers to break into a WPA-PSK protected network in his neighborhood. It took about 20 minutes of processing time. He has since updated his software to speed its performance and believes he could hack into the same network in about six minutes.

"Once you are in, you can do everything you can do if you are connected to the network," he said.

Roth said he was not publicising his discovery to encourage crime, but to change a misconception among network administrators.

"People tell me there is no possible way to break WPA, or, if it were possible, it would cost you a ton of money to do so," he said. "But it is easy to brute force them."

Officials at Amazon could not immediately be reached for comment.

>> Researcher uses Amazon cloud to hack networks | Cloud | News | PC Pro


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## optiplex (Jan 12, 2011)

Hi
Thanxs for sharing.


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