What term describes the practice of performing password cracking across multiple CPUs or machines using distributed architectures?

• A. Single-machine brute force
• B. Rainbow table attack
• C. Distributed password cracking
• D. Dictionary attack

Answer: (C)

Distributing the workload across multiple CPUs or machines to crack passwords faster is the concept behind distributed password cracking. In practice, you split the overall search space or set of guesses into chunks and assign each chunk to different workers, with a central coordinator managing tasks and collecting results. This parallel approach dramatically speeds up the process compared to running on a single machine, especially when GPUs or a computing cluster are involved. It’s distinct from a single-machine brute force, which uses only one system; it’s also not about precomputed hash tables used in rainbow table attacks or a predefined word list used in dictionary attacks. The term that describes performing password cracking across multiple CPUs or machines using distributed architectures is distributed password cracking.