David Ketler

David Ketler is a cybersecurity consultant based in Toronto, Canada with 10+ years of experience in software development and cybersecurity. He writes about password cracking, dark web activity, and password management.

Articles written by David Ketler

Feb

13

Infostealer Logs to Identity Exposure: What Real Credential Dumps Reveal

Modern infostealers have expanded credential theft far beyond usernames and passwords. Over the past year, campaigns have increased steadily, targeting users with little distinction between corporate employees and individuals on personal devices. These infections routinely harvest credentials alongside broader session…
Read More
Feb

11

The Romantic Passwords Cybercriminals Love to Use

Every year, the Specops breached password report delivers interesting insights into how passwords are created, and how attackers exploit those patterns. Users still rely on familiar words, names, places and cultural references when creating passwords. A surprising trend we’ve found…
Read More
Dec

03

ALIEN TXTBASE Data Leak: How Data Recycling Impacts Risk

ALIEN TXTBASE has emerged as one of the most active distributors of infostealer data on the dark web. Specops analysts have been monitoring this actor’s activity for months, reviewing each new batch of stolen credentials as it is released. With…
Read More
Sep

16

[New research] Cracking bcrypt: Is new-gen hardware and AI making password hacking faster?

Almost two years ago, the Specops research team analyzed how long it took to crack passwords hashed with the bcrypt algorithm. Two years is a long time in cybersecurity, so we’re revisiting the research with newer, more powerful hardware, to…
Read More