Free tool reveals pixeled passwords

If you thought the codes with pixels or other sensitive in screenshots kept your secrets safe, it's time to rethink your security. A recently released tool can show these obscure characters.

The tool, called Depix, is available for free at GitHub . Gets pixelized fonts and retrieves passwords.

"Pixelization is often used to disguise the information contained in images," said Depix developer Sipke Mellema, an information security consultant, writing about the new tool on LinkedIn.

“I've seen companies pixelize passwords in internal documents. There were no tools available to recover a password from such , so I created one.

The looks for patterns created when fonts are pixelized. Because pixelization follows a defined algorithm, the image of a set of character combinations will look the same every time.

When the search image is pixeled, it is possible to match the blocks in this image with the password blocks, allowing Depix to retrieve the supposedly hidden information, as you can see from the following screenshot:

As you can see, some of the letters are partly vague.

This happens when there is no complete match and so the image of this character is replaced by an "average" value of all possible matches. This average value still normally leads to a visual image, such as the H at the beginning of the password recovered above.

iGuRu.gr The Best Technology Site in Greecefgns

every publication, directly to your inbox

Join the 2.100 registrants.

Written by Anastasis Vasileiadis

Translations are like women. When they are beautiful they are not faithful and when they are faithful they are not beautiful.

Leave a reply

Your email address is not published. Required fields are mentioned with *

Your message will not be published if:
1. Contains insulting, defamatory, racist, offensive or inappropriate comments.
2. Causes harm to minors.
3. It interferes with the privacy and individual and social rights of other users.
4. Advertises products or services or websites.
5. Contains personal information (address, phone, etc.).