How Hackers are Using GPUs to Crack WPA2 WiFi Passwords

Posted on: March 29th, 2016 by Wolf TG Admin

Did you know WiFi can provide hackers with access to your network resources without the perpetrators ever stepping foot inside of your office building? That’s a scary prospect, considering the fact that your business could become a victim of a cyber crime without the hacker leaving a shred of physical evidence.

You’ve probably heard that WPA2 is the most secure wireless networking encryption scheme on the market today. While this is generally true, WPA2-PSK still has its fair share of security risks. For example, did you know that a hacker can rapidly speed up the process of bruteforcing your wireless networking password by using a powerful GPU that can be found inside of a high end graphics card? Learn what this means for your business:

So What Exactly Is A GPU?

When most people think of a Graphics Processing Unit (GPU), they typically think of the chips that are used inside of video cards to enhance visualizations in games, movies, and other types of rich media. Although GPUs are typically used in gaming rigs, hackers have begun using the robust processing ability of GPUs to perform sophisticated tasks such as WiFi password cracking, cryptocurrency mining, and more.

NVIDIA, an innovator in GPU technology, mentions that GPUs can potentially accelerate applications up to 100 times faster than a traditional Central Processing Unit (CPU).

How Can a Hacker Realistically Use a GPU to Crack a Network Key?

It’s a lot easier than you might think. In fact, by simply Googling “How to crack a WiFi Network using GPUs,” aspiring white hat and black hat hackers can begin running WiFi penetration tests on any wireless network that just happens to be within range.

Remember how we said that GPUs can potentially accelerate applications by up to 100x times that of a CPU? GPUs can be configured to work in conjunction with network penetration testing tools such as Kali Linux, HashCat, and Aircrack-NG in order to bruteforce your wireless network’s access key. If a GPU can process data up to hundred times faster than a CPU, this means that your network key can be bruteforced up to a 100 times faster than those using a traditional CPU to do the job.

How Do I Protect My Business from Hackers Using GPUs?

In order to keep your business safe from GPU related attacks, it is imperative to come up with a comprehensive wireless network security plan. By staying one step ahead of the hackers, you’ll be able to rest comfortably at night knowing that your business is safe from WiFi intruders.

Here is a 4 point plan for additional WiFi security measures that your organization can implement today:

Make your WPA2 Wireless Network Key as Long As Possible

Your network key can be up to 64 total ASCII characters. While it can be cumbersome to remember a 64 character password, think of it like this: that’s less than half of the characters allowed in a Tweet!

You’ll also want to stay away from using dictionary words. In fact, consider using a “l33t” speak password. For example, “my business isn’t your business so leave me alone wannabe hacker,” (64 characters) is much less secure than, “my bu$in3$$ I$n’t y0ur bu$ine$$ s0 l3@v3 m3 @l0n3 w@nn@b3 h@ck3r!”

These types of passwords may not be very fun for people to type into their mobile devices, but if your business must provide the utmost in wireless network security, having long and complex network access keys is an absolute must.

Change Your Network Access Key Often

Even a complex network access key can be bruteforced, provided the fact that you’ve given the hacker enough time to complete their penetration test.

If you have implemented a complex WiFi network access key and the hackers test seems to not be yielding any results, the hacker may simply move onto another WiFi network that they see as lower hanging fruit.

Setup Access Windows on Your Wireless Network

Does anyone really need to access your wireless network at 2am? If you’re a small business that has an entry level WiFi router, you can easily unplug your access point before you leave the office at night.

If you’re a medium to large sized business, your WiFi access point may give you the option to stop broadcasting during certain times. If your employees are in the office from 9am to 5pm, why would you ever broadcast your WiFi signal from 6pm to 8am each day?

If your wireless access point gives you the ability to create access windows, configure it immediately!

Consider Using a MAC Address Whitelist

All businesses should know exactly who, what, where, when and why a computer or mobile device is trying to authenticate onto your wireless network. To avoid all of the guesswork, implement a policy in which laptops and mobile devices must first be registered with your IT department. This ensures that only devices that are authorized to be on your network are able to get network access.

If you want to provide wireless network access to visitors, try setting up a guest network that is subnetted separately from all of the other resources on your network. Require guests to go through a heavily firewalled connection and use an agent to check whether or not the guest device has virus protection before allowing it to authenticate onto your guest network.

Have more questions about WiFi netowkrs and hacking? Give us a call at (833) 482-6435 or schedule a consultation online to ask away. If you aren’t quite ready to talk yet, click the banner below to read a little more about our secure wireless solutions. We look forward to hearing from you!

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