How Quickly Can Your Passwords be Cracked?

My dad’s visiting and we’re talking about passwords. How secure are you online? Your credit cards? Your bank accounts? On-line security is a very serious thing and it’s pretty simple to make sure you’re safe.

Your passwords MUST BE SECURE! You might think they are, however…

Do you use:
1. Your partner, child, or pet’s name, possibly followed by a 0 or 1 (because they’re always making you use a number, aren’t they?)
2. The last 4 digits of your social security number
3. 123 or 1234 or 123456
4. password
5. Your city, or college, football team name
6. Date of birth – yours, your partner’s or your child’s
7. god
8. letmein
9. money
10. love

According to John Pozadzides, that covers about 20% of us. And, if you’re not in that list, it will take him a few more minutes to break in.

This is amazing —

• If your password is 5 characters long, all in lower case, it takes 11.9 seconds to crack.
• If your password is 8 characters long, using a mix of all characters on the keyboard (uppercase, lowercase, and special characters – like @#$%^&*), it will take 2.1 centuries to crack!

John wrote one of the best posts on passwords I’ve read. It’s frightening, informative, educational and, therefore, empowering! Take a few minutes to read “How I’d Hack Your Weak Passwords” and learn how you can make your passwords secure.

I recommend a wonderful password program, 1Password. Check them out. Easy to use; they create killer passwords for you; more than worth the money. Don’t wait until it’s too late.

How secure are your passwords?