Vista Activation Cracked By Brute Force

It is a simple brute force attack, dumb as a rock that just tries keys. If it gets one, you manually have to check it and try activation. Is is ugly, takes hours, is far from point and click, but it is said to work. The method of attack has got to be quite troubling for MS on many grounds. The crack is a glorified guesser, and with the speed of modern PCs and the number of outstanding keys, the 25-digit serials are within range.

I’m surprised that this method hasn’t been done before, or at least one that became public. This is far from being a keygen, as it simply tries out random keys until one succeeds. One thing I would like to know is how many -total- Vista keys could exist while retaining the current algorithm. Assuming it’s in the millions, it might be a while before we see someones legal key become “stolen”.

Source: The Inquirer