In February, the world celebrates Safer Internet Day, and today is February 7, 2023. The theme of this year's celebration is "Building a Better Internet Together". Raise awareness of the ban on misuse of the Internet and provide solutions to overcome it.
(World Safer Internet Day) began in 2004 as an initiative of the European Union with the participation of 14 countries to raise awareness of the need to use the Internet safely and comply with safety measures, but now it is celebrated by more than 180 countries and regions around the world.
This year's celebration comes at a time of increasing cybercrime and piracy, as many countries around the world are at risk of cyberattacks and breaches of electronic networks and systems. It even involves using artificial intelligence to develop malware as we did with ChatGPT bots, which hackers use to create data-stealing software tools and use them in phishing and phishing campaigns.
Since this day is seen as a universal opportunity for everyone to highlight the positive uses of the internet and denounce the negative uses, in today's article we look at the importance of having unique passwords to secure your accounts and how long it takes hackers to gain access. When researched for research, your passwords are based on their length and complexity, so what are the best practices you can follow to keep your accounts secure?
How long will it take a hacker to crack your password?
What if short, simple passwords could be cracked in seconds, but long, complex passwords could take millions of years?
A recent study by cybersecurity firm Hive Systems showed that it takes an average attacker just 39 minutes to crack a password with an 8-digit password — which contains a mix of numbers, uppercase and lowercase letters, and symbols — using talking zeros. Passwords less than 6 characters long can be cracked instantly.
In addition, short passwords with only one or two characters, such as all numbers or lowercase letters, or only numbers and uppercase letters, can take a few minutes to crack.
Meanwhile, according to Hive Systems, it would take about two million years to crack a password of 18 characters — a mix of numbers, uppercase and lowercase letters, and symbols.
The company provided a color chart showing cracking speeds for different passwords based on password length and use of different characters and symbols, showing how these times have accelerated since 2020 due to technological developments, as shown below.
Hackers who want to quickly crack complex and short passwords need the latest and most advanced technology in GPUs. The more powerful the GPU, the faster it can perform certain tasks. Such as: cryptocurrency mining and password cracking.
Example: One of the best GPUs currently available is from Nvidia (GeForce RTX 3090), which starts at $1,499. But there are also less powerful and cheaper GPUs that can be used to hack shorter and more complex ciphers somewhat in a relatively short time.
Not only that, according to Hive, hackers who don't have the latest GPUs in their computers can easily upgrade to cloud services, where they can use multiple virtual instances of powerful GPUs to crack passwords at a relatively low cost.
Due to advances in GPUs, most types of passwords take less time to crack than they did a few years ago, for example: a 7-digit password - which contains a mixture of numbers, uppercase and lowercase letters, and symbols - used to take 7 to crack The minutes are in 2020 but it only takes 31 seconds to crack the 2022 as shown in the following video:
The 🟪 Purple Wave 🟪 is here! Check out how the Hive Systems Password Table changed from 2020 to 2022, and then go download the latest version of it at https://t.co/Hy1hklW66d pic.twitter.com/JRofSJZygE
— Hive Systems (@hivesystems) March 4, 2022
With these technological advancements, how can you best protect your accounts and data?
Here are some tips for protecting your data:
1- Use passwords instead of short words:
(Passphrase) A passphrase is a long string of random words. Passphrases are generally more secure than passwords and are generally easier to remember. For example: use phrases like "Sunset-be@ch-$and" or "I-l0ve-C@ir0-in-the-S9ring!" , where you can replace certain letters with numbers or similar symbols. According to Security.org, it would take billions of years to decipher these phrases.
2- Enable the two-factor authentication feature:
It is very important to use the two-factor authentication feature in applications and services that support it, if the site or application supports the additional verification feature that the account belongs to the same user trying to use it via SMS or through the application adds an additional layer of security to your account.
3- Do not trust password manager services and applications:
Since anything connected to the internet is vulnerable to hacking at any time, you should not put your trust in password management services and applications because they are vulnerable to hacking just like the passwords of password management applications (LastPass) that expire in 2022.
Alternatively, you can use a physical security key. You do not need a code to verify your identity. These usually come in the form of USB devices and are used to authenticate the device, which is better than using OS-based software that can be exploited to compromise your account.
Traditional passwords will also soon be gone as Apple, Google and Microsoft have joined the FIDO Alliance and W3C to adopt Passkeys technology in their operating systems and browsers as a more secure and simple login method than passwords and all authentication methods. current binary.
Passkey is a new login tool based on the WebAuthn standard where you can use biometric authentication: Touch ID, Face ID, PIN, or swipe pattern for Android devices to authenticate your login attempts instead of relying on your username and password to log out.
4- Password strength test:
To estimate the strength of the password you want to use, you can enter it on a site like Security.org. The website will tell you how long it will take to crack this password, as the picture below shows, it will take 200 million years to crack the password.
