Guessing weak passwords One common way to crack a password is simply to guess it. It's not even all that hard. That's because many of us want a password that will be easy to remember, so we often use the names of pets, children or spouses, not to mention dates like wedding anniversaries and numbers such as ZIP codes.
Because many people use weak passwords, brute-force attacks remain effective for hacking accounts. Attackers use an automated computer algorithm to rapidly try different passwords. Some brute-force attacks can attempt one billion passwords per second!
The easiest and most common way that hackers get passwords is from data breaches, in which huge amounts of user data has already been leaked or stolen from companies. This data, which often includes usernames and passwords, is compiled into databases and may be sold on the dark web or downloaded freely on forums.
Most hackable passwords
Second came “123456” followed by the slightly longer “123456789.” Rounding out the top five were “guest” and “qwerty.” Most of those log-ins can be cracked in less than a second.
On average it only takes a hacker two seconds to crack an 11 – character password that only uses numbers. But if you throw in some upper and lower-case letters in there that number changes, taking the hacker 1 minute to hack into a seven-character password.
A 14 character length password (NIST recommended) gives you 4.8 x 10^27 combinations. Even at 100,000,000 per second, that would take you more than a million years to guess if you had to try every possible combination.
The longer and more varied your password is, the harder it will be for hackers to crack it. A 12-character password that only uses numbers will take just a second to crack, but 14-character passwords that use numbers, symbols, upper case, and lower case letters can take millions of years.
“guest” beat out “123456” to be the most popular password among Americans in 2022. Simple combinations of letters, numbers, and symbols, such as “a1b2c3,” “abc123,” or “qwerty,” are highly popular in the US.
What is the most commonly hacked password? The first place among the most hacked passwords assuredly belongs to 123456. As many as 23.2 million victims globally used this password when their accounts were leaked.
Changing your passwords may not mitigate all the damage from malware or a successful phishing expedition. Still, it can keep future attackers or scammers from accessing your accounts or impersonating you further.
Yes, they can.
The people who can access this information could be your boss or family member if they control the network. It is best to use security tools: VPNs, HTTPS proxies, and the Tor browser to keep your searches private from them.
Your ISP always knows what you are doing on the internet, and if you are a person of interest, your online activities are forwarded to the government watchdogs. Hackers and other prying eyes can also see your browsing history and additional information if you connect to the internet via insecure public Wi-Fi.
While passport information sells for the most amount of money, Social Security numbers are the most valuable to hackers, as these can be used for tax fraud, opening credit accounts, and other malicious activities.
Hackers learn to hack by getting an education in cybersecurity, obtaining certifications, and getting jobs that require hacking capabilities. Here is more information on how hackers learn to hack: Get an education in cybersecurity. There are many different paths to starting a career in hacking and cybersecurity.
Researchers at the data analysis firm Data Genetics have found that the three most popular combinations—“1234,” “1111,” and “0000”—account for close to 20 percent of all four-digit passwords.
Mix Word and number together randomly
Mix Word and number together randomly (mix uppercase and lowercase). For example, 2 words “Scotfield” and “01255447689”, mix it randomly and become “S012cot5544fie76ld89”, frankly… i do not think is it possible to crack, but it very hard to remember also.
Use long, complex passwords that use spaces, capital letters, lower case letters, numbers and special characters. To make them easier to remember, consider using a sentence that has meaning to you.
Even if that number only password is 14 numbers (that's nearly 100 trillion number combinations), it only takes four days to crack a password even that size; Want to use all upper and lower case letters instead?
Tracking hackers down is laborious and often takes a lot of time, collaboration, and investigative research.