How strong is your password? | Analyzing common passwords
At first glance these passwords range in complexity, going from the simple ‘password’ to the excessive ‘Measuredoutislifeincoffeespoons’. Using the password strength checker ‘HowSecureIsMyPassword‘ we can look at the amount of time a few of these would take to brute force(see the above website for how these timings are generated):
| Password: | Password Length: | Time To Crack: |
|---|---|---|
| redarrows | 9 | 22 minutes |
| Bu7kil | 6 | 14 seconds |
| Hello.11 | 8 | 5 days |
| C3star | 6 | 14 seconds |
When creating strong passwords we are looking for a few things. This including: a password being above 8 characters in length (example: ********), a password with no obvious pattern (example: rtjsscrsz), a password with a range of characters and symbols (example: H3ll0wOrl)d*) and finally a password with no dictionary words (example: qssswa).
There are also several tips that can be used when creating passwords. The most prominent of these can be done by taking a long and memorable phrase, for example: “I usually take my dog out for a walk on Wednesday mornings”. Once we have this statement we can take the first letter of each word, being: “iutmdofawowm”. This is a great password as it lacks any dictionary words, however it could still be better. After we have this we can now add a few; numbers, characters and upper case letters to round it off. We’re now left with “iUTmd0f4wowm*)”.
It’s passwords like this that should become the norm for users, to make sure that we’re improving our security in any and every way we can.
Image source: Pixabay.com
