How fast could the world's fastest supercomputer brute force crack a password?

To estimate how quickly the world's fastest supercomputer, El Capitan, could brute force crack a password, we need to consider its computational power and how it compares to other systems used for brute-force attacks.

Computational Power of El Capitan

El Capitan has a peak performance of 2.746 exaFLOPS (exafloating-point operations per second)14.

Brute-Force Attacks

Brute-force attacks involve trying all possible combinations of a password until the correct one is found. Here are some key points to consider:

• GPU and FPGA Comparisons: Current high-performance GPUs and FPGAs can significantly accelerate brute-force attacks. For example, a setup with 8 Nvidia RTX 4090 GPUs can cycle through 200 billion eight-character NTLM password combinations in 48 minutes3.
• Password Complexity: The time it takes to crack a password exponentially increases with the length and complexity of the password. For instance, a 10-character password with varied character types (numbers, lower and upper case, and special characters) creates an enormous number of possible combinations25.

Estimation for El Capitan

Given El Capitan's vast computational power, it would significantly outperform current GPU and FPGA setups.

• Simple Passwords: For shorter passwords (e.g., 6-8 characters), El Capitan could crack them almost instantaneously due to its exascale performance. For example, a 6-character password that a powerful CPU might take over two years to crack, or a GPU might crack in 3.5 days, would likely be cracked by El Capitan in a matter of seconds or minutes at most5.
• Complex Passwords: For longer, more complex passwords (e.g., 10 characters with varied character types), the time would still be significantly reduced compared to current hardware. While a GPU processor might take approximately 526 years to crack such a password, El Capitan's superior performance could potentially reduce this time to a few weeks or even days, depending on the specific implementation and optimization of the brute-force algorithm5.

In summary, while exact times would depend on the specific password characteristics and the efficiency of the brute-force algorithm implemented, El Capitan's exascale computing capabilities would make it capable of cracking even complex passwords in a fraction of the time it would take current high-performance systems.