Cloud computing is open to everyone – good or bad.  Here we see someone renting computing power for a couple of dollars to crack an SHA-1 password. Imagine the potential of a competitor  using a few thousand pounds worth of computing potential to crack your passwords… or a disgruntled employee launching an attack with some of their severance. See the following article from the Register for more information.

German hacker uses rented computing to crack hashing algorithm • The Register.