Cracking the Codes: A brand new Hive Methods Password Desk replace highlights a rising concern: trendy GPUs can crack hashed passwords sooner than ever. As {hardware} improves, quick or easy credentials present little to no protection – making longer, extra advanced passphrases more and more important for safety.
Safety firm Hive Methods has been pushing the boundaries of password cracking utilizing the most recent GPU {hardware} since 2020. Its most up-to-date Hive Methods Password Desk replace employs the GeForce RTX 5090 to spice up cracking efficiency towards hashed passwords considerably. Ought to customers and firms be involved? The reply is not solely cut-and-dry.
Hash features convert textual content of any size into fixed-size values, turning a listing of plaintext passwords right into a cryptic hash desk. Even when attackers steal this desk from a server, there is no such thing as a strategy to reverse the hash to disclose the unique passwords.
Hackers can nonetheless attempt to crack hashed passwords by computing numerous character mixtures and evaluating the outcomes to identified breached information – a technique Hive Methods simulates in its yearly Password Desk. For 2025, the analysts used twelve RTX 5090 GPUs to check their pace towards the bcrypt hashing perform.
Cracking an eight-digit password manufactured from solely numbers would take quarter-hour with the twelve GPU engine. Utilizing simply lowercase letters bumps the cracking time to a few weeks. Strengthened credentials with numbers and letters, the timeline jumps to 62 years. Combine in symbols, and it balloons to 164 years of nonstop effort.
In comparison with the GeForce RTX 4090, which Hive Methods utilized in its 2024 Password Desk, Nvidia’s newest GPU era would supply a 33 % efficiency improve. Nevertheless, a single GeForce RTX 5090 would acquire a big edge with more and more advanced passwords, turning into twice as quick with passwords that includes numbers, uppercase and lowercase letters, and symbols. You’d simply must wait 1,000 years to get the job carried out.
Whereas these theoretical instances are more and more impractical, Hive’s comparability to the GeForce RTX 4090, from final yr’s desk, highlights how way more energy hackers can faucet into. Nvidia’s newest GPU era supplies a 33-percent efficiency increase. Nevertheless, the GeForce RTX 5090 has double the acquire with more and more advanced passwords that includes numbers, uppercase and lowercase letters, and symbols. Humorously, that’s the distinction between 2,000 and 1,000 years.
Hive notes that cracking passwords this fashion nonetheless requires entry to a database of compromised password hashes. The 2025 Hive Methods Password Desk is an insightful reminder that advanced, longer passwords are at all times safer than the standard weak passwords we see yr after yr. Please replace your credentials, individuals.
