A 10-digit password that only uses numbers could be cracked by a hacker immediately – while one made up of lowercase letters would only take a minute to guess. However, if you use upper and lower case letters, plus numbers and symbols, it could take a hacker up to two weeks.
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!
A hacker needs only about 1 day to crack a seven-character password that contains only numbers and lower-case letters. This moves up to 40 days when the user includes capital letters. Increasing the number of characters in your password from 7 to 8, will force a hacker to spend almost 7 years trying to crack it.
For a complex 12-character password, the duration Hive estimate is 14 billion years.
Increasing the password complexity to a 13 character full alpha-numeric password increases the time needed to crack it to more than 900,000 years at 7 billion attempts per second. This is, of course, assuming the password does not use a common word that a dictionary attack could break much sooner.
If a password is only four or five characters (whether they are just numbers or a combination of numbers, letters and symbols), there's a very high chance that it will be hacked instantly. However, if a password is only numbers and up to 18 characters, it could take a hacker up to nine months to crack the code.
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.
A strong password is a unique word or phrase a hacker cannot easily guess or crack. Here are the main traits of a reliable, secure password: At least 12 characters long (the longer, the better). Has a combination of upper and lowercase letters, numbers, punctuation, and special symbols.
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.
Cybercriminals rarely choose their victims at random. The first stage of the cyber kill chain is reconnaissance, where an attacker narrows down a list of targets based on organization profile, security posture, and vulnerable individuals.
If your PC is infected with a key logger that sends information to the hacker, then yes he can see your password changes. A key logger can not only send what you typed in, but also screen shots.
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.
“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.
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.
Online privacy experts say Facebook, Instagram and Spotify are the most commonly hacked account types in the United States. Hackers use leaked credentials to break into accounts or steal login details via phishing emails.
Kevin Mitnick holds the title as the world's most famous hacker ever, with this title dating back to 1995 by the US Department of Justice. Kevin Mitnick started hacking at an early age. He broke into the realm of public attention in the 1980s after he hacked into the North American Defense Command (NORAD).
According to NordPass' latest list of top 200 most common passwords in 2022, “password” is the most popular choice, followed by “123456”, “123456789”, “guest” and “qwerty“.
“Statistically, 8068 is the safest PIN,” says Tyler Moffitt, senior threat research analyst at Webroot. “Other good numbers are 7637, 6835, and 9629. But that's mainly because they follow no pattern, isn't a date, or repetition of numbers, or the column of the keypad (2580).”
Research suggests thieves can guess one in five PINs by trying just three combinations. How easy would it be for a thief to guess your four-digit PIN? If he were forced to guess randomly, his odds of getting the correct number would be one in 10,000—or, if he has three tries, one in 3,333.
How many cyber attacks per day on average? On average, around 30,000 websites are hacked every day globally out of which 43% are targeted at small businesses.