There’s been a lot of talk recently about using graphics processing units (GPU) to crack passwords. This was due to a recent paper published by a researchers from the Georgia Tech Research Institute. Long story short: Make sure your passwords are now a minimum of 12 characters in length. Optimally, you should choose passwords from a universe of 4 character sets (Uppercase, lowercase, numbers, spec!al ch@racters).
One of the GTRI researchers who authored the paper was interviewed on the Cyber Jungle SU Root #164. The audio file is 25 minutes long.
On another note, the alternative uses of GPU’s won’t be going away anytime soon but could be renamed. Both large chip makers, AMD and Intel, are working on or have already released hybrid CPU/GPU chips. Read more here.