When it comes to IT securityalways use one secure password it is a more than necessary precaution to keep your accounts and personal data safe.
But if on the one hand the discussion on cyber security has now become the order of the day for anyone (especially companies and governments) it is equally true that the techniques for violate the password they become increasingly sophisticated and this happens thanks to new technologies, created for a completely different purpose, and which digital attackers have “reconverted” for their malicious purposes.
Clearly, choosing one password weak you play into the hands of hackers, making access to your information much easier, with disastrous consequences for the privacy and not only.
When a password is considered weak
The password that we commonly use, except in cases where users decide to engage in the enterprise, are considered weak.
The reason is simple: because many continue to use it keys Of access easily identifiablelinked to their life (such as their name or date of birth), greatly simplifying the “work” of digital attackers.
If then you choose to use parole common o sequences Of numbers (like the classic 123456) it’s even simpler and we might as well leave the “cyber security door” wide open for anyone who wants to snoop into our sensitive data.
How to create a secure password? You can start by creating combinations that include uppercase e lowercase, numbers e Special characters; perhaps trying not to use classic sequences (like 1234) and, clearly, information that can be easily found by users, such as their name and things like that.
How hackers crack passwords
It must be remembered that the various services on the web that must be accessed via password take these combinations and the they encodevia a function called hashing.
Simply put with hashing, the password original is transformed into a hash (the encoded version of the access key) which makes everything incomprehensible. In this way it is much more complicated for attackers to trace the word in question and crack it.
In the case of simpler passwords, however, this may not be enough and with a very simple list of all combinations possible, getting to the access key in question is relatively simple; for this reason, cyber security experts always recommend using “creativity” when creating such credentials.
And it is precisely in this context that technology comes into play and the classics come to the rescue of hackers graphics cards (both physical ones and on servers) which, if used via specific software, can provide the computing power necessary to crack even the most complex passwords.
The difference, however, lies in the time required for decoding which, if a rather complicated combination is used, could even reach thousands of years, effectively making the attempt futile.
This is why creating a non-obvious access key made up of letters (uppercase and lowercase), numbers and special characters can represent the only real way to keep your personal data safe.
How long does it take to crack a password
Recently the site Hive Systems has published a very useful table (clearly visible on the official page) which shows in detail the times needed to decode a more or less complex password.
It is clear that in the case of “fragile” passwords, any computer with a series of good quality graphics cards (such as a NVIDIA RTX 4090, for example) can conquer it almost instantly.
The situation changes for more complex combinations which, as mentioned in the previous paragraph, can take thousands of years.
For this reason, regardless of the tables and indications above, it is worth asking yourself whether it is better to take unnecessary risks by choosing a fragile password or whether it is preferable to be safe before problems arrive and decide to make hackers’ lives a a little harder with a complex password? The answer at this point should be obvious.
To know more: Computer security: guide to safe browsing on the web