How Risky Is It to Use My Password?
The use of weak or stolen passwords is frequently the root cause of the proliferation of data breaches and identity theft. After acquiring credentials, fraudsters have the ability to exploit stolen passwords to launch disinformation campaigns against firms, use individuals' credit information to make purchases, and eavesdrop on users through WiFi-connected security cameras.
This tool was developed by us to assist you in gaining a deeper comprehension of the importance of password security.
How To Generate Safer Passwords For Your Accounts
The following are some of the best techniques for developing secure passwords:
A password should have at least 16 characters, but according to our research on the subject, 45 percent of Americans use passwords with eight characters or fewer, which is less secure than using a password with more than eight characters.
It is recommended that a password be made up of a mix of letters, numbers, and special characters.
It is unacceptable to use the same password for more than one account.
A user's personal information, such as their address or phone number, should not be included in any way, shape, or form in a password. It is also highly recommended that you do not include any information that can be obtained on social media, such as the names of your children or pets.
It's not a good idea for a password to have any characters or digits that come in a row after each other.
It is not a good idea to use the word "password" as a password, nor should you use the same letter or number more than once.
Why Is the Security of Passwords So Important?
The use of insecure passwords has repercussions, some of which include, but are not limited to the following:
Many hackers, once they have gained access to a user's credentials, will log into their accounts in order to obtain additional personally identifiable information (PII) about the user, such as their names, addresses, and financial account information.
They will use this information to either steal money directly from the user or to take the user's identity in order to steal money. Theft of one's identity might result in additional financial losses as well as difficulties in obtaining jobs or financing.
A lack of personal space
Hackers can start disinformation campaigns against firms, revealing their data with competitors and storing it for a ransom1. This can be problematic for enterprises.
The Repercussions of Lost or Stolen Passwords
Eighty percent of all data breaches in 20192 were triggered by compromised passwords, which resulted in financial losses for both corporations and individual customers.
Influence felt by local companies
According to IBM's estimates, the average loss to an organization due to a data breach in the year 2020 was $3.86 million worldwide. However, the average cost for the United States was the highest in the world, coming in at $8.64 million3.
In the manufacturing business in particular, malware that spilled passwords and stole credentials led to a total of 922 instances of cybersecurity breaches in the year 2020. Seventy-three percent of these instances were caused by financial incentives, while only twenty-seven percent of these incidents were caused by espionage4.
55% of the top manufacturers will have data breaches in 2020, according to the Top Data Compromised Percentage.
Personal49%Payment20%
Other25%
If a company suffers a data breach that is brought on by stolen credentials, the company stands to lose up to three percent of its whole market value over the course of time. Within only thirty days of the revelation that there was a breach, the loss suffered by the retail business more than triples to nine percent.
This increase is related, according to researchers from the Kenan Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina, to the fact that clients of retail establishments have a lower level of brand loyalty than customers of businesses operating in other sectors5.
Effects on Individual Customers
According to IBM's 2020 Cost of Data Breach Report, the most valuable data type that hackers may extract from security breaches is data connected to personally identifiable information (PII) of customers, which costs $150 per record.
According to the FTC, overall damages from identity theft in 2019, which can be caused by stolen passwords, totalled $92 million. Passwords can be the source of identity theft. Consumers suffered a loss of $8,946 on average as a result of identity theft.
There are a number of recommended practices that one may follow to boost their digital security. One such practice is to make secure and unique passwords for each of their online accounts.
Utilize a Virtual Private Network (VPN): Even if passwords prevent unauthorized users from accessing accounts, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are still able to trace a user's online activities as well as the private IP addresses of their devices.
The only option to conceal web activity and IP addresses is to connect, not directly to a public Wi-Fi network, but rather through a VPN, which is an abbreviation that stands for a virtual private network.
Find out more about picking the best virtual private network (VPN), all of which have been evaluated by our digital security specialists.
Obtain protection against identity theft: There is no one thing that can prevent a user's personally identifying information from being stolen, and while having a robust password can go a long way toward protecting online accounts, there is no surefire technique to prevent identity theft. Instead, the best identity theft protection software keeps an eye on important criminal and financial domains for signs of personally identifiable information belonging to users.
Set up a security system in your house: Users are able to secure their homes and families using home security systems that are among the best.
Utilize virus protection software: Computers, mobile phones, and tablet computers can be scanned by antivirus software for malware, viruses, ransomware, spyware, and other forms of online dangers.
Make use of a password manager. Password managers encrypt the vaults where usernames and passwords are stored for users, requiring only a master password or biometrics to access the accounts.
Users should only change their passwords when absolutely necessary; it is a common misconception that users should rotate their passwords at set intervals. According to recent reports, rather than changing your password frequently, you should only do it if you suspect that your account has been hacked.
The Methodology Behind How Our Tool Operates
The "how secure is your password" tool that can be seen above compares the passwords of users to a database of commonly used passwords that are considered to be insecure.
It analyzes each password using important criteria such as the following:
Number of characters: The password needs to contain at least eight to ten characters, but ideally, it should have between sixteen and twenty characters.
Combinations Rather than using a phrase as the password, you should use a combination of letters, numbers, and symbols.
The final tally is arrived at by adding up the individual numerical values that are connected with each character, which are then tallied together.
The password shouldn't repeat itself in terms of the characters it contains; instead, it should use unique combinations of those characters.
The tool assigns a score to each password based on these considerations, and then it converts each password's score into the amount of time it would take a computer to crack that password. For illustration's sake, if you used the password "f0JBB5sjmXl," it would take a computer 34,000 years to figure it out.
Questions That Are Typically Asked
We have provided answers to the questions that we get asked the most frequently so that you can gain additional knowledge on the cleanliness and safety of passwords.
What is the safest password that I can use?
There is no one password that can be considered to be the "most secure," and even if there were, publishing that password would render it useless because thousands of individuals would use it on their accounts if it were made public.
Secure passwords, on the other hand, are those that have at least 16 to 20 characters and are made up of an apparently random combination of letters, numbers, and symbols.
What is an example of a safe password that you would use?
A password such as bL8%4TO&t9b%, which was produced by the password manager LastPass, is an example of a secure password. It would take a machine 46 million years to crack this password!
How secure is a password that has 12 characters?
A password consisting of 12 characters offers a reasonable level of protection; nevertheless, the safest passwords consist of 16 to 20 characters in length.
Are lengthy passwords always safer?
Long passwords offer a higher level of protection than their shorter counterparts. Although we suggest choosing passwords that are anywhere from 16 to 20 characters long, nearly half of all Americans use passwords that are eight characters or fewer in length.
What are the five most typical passwords that people use?
According to research conducted in 2020 by NordPass, the five most frequent passwords are 123456, 123456789, picture1, and password. The sixth most common password is 12345678.
Password
How Many People Are Using It Currently?
How long did it take for it to become cracked?
How Many Opportunities Have You Had to Use It?
A time interval of 1234562,543,285 milliseconds or less
Less than one second after the decimal point 23,597,311123456789961,435
7,870,694 pictures13,711,6123 hours11,190 passwords360,467 total
a fraction of a second or less
3,759,315
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