There is an unquestionable reality, even though it’s hard to believe: the most repeated passwords every year, no matter how much time passes, are always “123456” or the “birthdate.” Security experts constantly emphasize that this is the biggest mistake users make, as these passwords are incredibly easy to guess. Now, how difficult is yours? How long could it take for them to steal your password?
The company Hive Systems, an expert in cybersecurity, has released its usual annual chart indicating how much time it would take for an external entity to guess a password. The chart is composed of rows and columns. The rows represent the number of characters in the password, while the columns refer to how the password is constructed, such as using only numbers, uppercase and lowercase letters, etc.
To give you an idea, an expert trying to access our account would do so “instantaneously” in a large number of cases. However, as the number of characters increases, the complexity grows. For example, a password consisting of 18 numbers could take up to 6 days for a specialist to crack. On the other hand, a password consisting of 18 lowercase letters would take as long as 481,000 years. Yes, you read the number correctly; it’s not a typo.
In this context, experts from Hive Systems emphasize that the difference in characters is what can make a significant impact; that is, the password should be long and not short. From this point, if you mix lowercase letters, uppercase letters, numbers, and symbols, the combination becomes unfathomable. For example, a 14-character password composed of all of the above would take up to 1 million years to uncover. That’s quite something.
With this data on the table, now you know how long it could take to uncover your password. And we urge you, please don’t use 123456, for the sake of your digital health.
