Implementing Rainbow Tables in High-End FPGAs for Super-Fast Password Cracking

One of the most efficient methods for cracking passwords, which are hashed based on different cryptographic algorithms, is the one based on "Rainbow Tables". Those lookup tables offer an almost optimal time-memory tradeoff in the process of recovering the plaintext password from a password hash, generated by a cryptographic hash function. In this paper, the first known such generic system is demonstrated. It is implemented in a state-of-the-art reconfigurable device that cracks passwords, which are encrypted with a number of different cryptographic algorithms. The proposed FPGA-based system is up to 1000 times faster than the corresponding software approach. This is achieved by using a highly parallel architecture employing a fine-grained pipeline.