Every 18 seconds a computer crime is committed in the world. Some passwords can be hacked in as little as 10 minutes. But, if you are careful, it could take more than 44,000 years to hack your password. Here we will see a few tips to prevent theft of the digital information.
Theft of the passwords is ranked first as one of the methods to perform them. Annually, there are 556 million computer frauds globally, which generate damages of more than $110 billion dollars. It is estimated that a hacker can take a few minutes to decrypt a simple key. Therefore, the experts recommend taking certain precautions when you are choosing a strong password.
How long it takes a hacker to decrypt your password?
Studies reveal that a hacker can take only 10 minutes to decrypt a 6-character lowercase password. However, with the same number of characters, but combined with capital letters would take about 10 hours and, if it also combines numbers and symbols, it would be 18 days.
Instead, for a password of 9 characters only in lowercase, a hacker would take 4 months to decrypt it. If it is capital letters, 178 years and with symbols and numbers 44,530 years. Therefore, it is always recommended to use passwords of not less than 8 characters and that carry a mixture of the four types of characters i.e. lowercase, uppercase numbers and symbols.
How to Generate Secure Password?
It is important to avoid names of relatives, significant dates, football teams or similar and favorite books, as well as it is advisable not to repeat the same password for all services. Never ever share the password with other people or leave it annotated in a post-it in the office or at home.
The specialists also point out that ‘no bank, company or social network requests that passwords be relinquished, and in the face of the slightest suspicion that the password was compromised, it must be changed on immediate basis.
A good way to easily remember a password is to generate password based on mnemonic rules, for example, think a phrase and convert it using letters, numbers and symbols. For example, the phrase ‘I find it difficult to remember 10 passwords.’ would look like this ‘ifidtr10p’.
The Worst Passwords
The classic 123456 is one of the top of the ranking of the most used internet access passwords published by hackers in 2012. Among the most resounding information leakage cases of 2012 may be data leakage from more than 56,000 Visa and MasterCard accounts, 6.5 million passwords from LinkedIn and more than 450,000 stolen credentials from Yahoo! Voice.
The second major focus of attack was exploiting vulnerabilities in smartphones. Also during 2012, a design vulnerability in the mobile applications of Facebook, Dropbox and LinkedIn made them susceptible to theft of the passwords. In order to provide greater security in companies, a second authentication factor could be implemented. The use of a password randomizer is also a possible solution against their theft nowadays.
