Why password is so important

Password as one of the main elements of cybersecurity

Cybersecurity involves a range of technologies, processes, and practices designed to detect and prevent cyber threats. Password is one of the very important technologies. Underestimating the importance of a password is a big mistake.

In this article, we’ll focus on password-level security only. Protecting access to the system and data by setting a password is the basic form of protection against attacks and unauthorized access. The importance of the password for your operating system should be emphasized here.

Although security experts constantly repeat a strong password! – strong password! – strong password! laziness of users is one of the biggest problems, and in the desire to access the system as quickly and easily as possible, they set a weak password or, what can be worse, do not set a password at all. Your vulnerability will be noticed and exploited at high speed, and for many people who do not deal with information technologies, it is difficult to understand.

Time it takes a hacker to brute force your password

Updating your password to be longer and contain a mix of letters, numbers, and symbols can increase the time it takes a hacker to crack it even as password encryption measures improve, according to the IT firm Hive Systems .

The passwords tested by Hive Systems are also randomly generated. For a simple eight-character password composed only of numbers, just 37 seconds are needed to crack it using brute force, a method that employs trial and error by trying as many combinations as possible. If the number of characters is doubled, a hacker would need 119 years to determine it.

Here I will not go into detail about the hardware used in the Hive Systems tests, the hash functions that were used as a form of encryption, and other important parameters that affect the results of the table shown above. It will be discussed in more detail another time. This blog aims to globally acquaint the reader with the level of danger he exposes himself to when creating a weak password.

To simply describe the danger of data theft, it is enough to say that more than 33 million French people (almost half of the population) have been impacted by the country’s biggest-ever cyberattack.
Cybersecurity experts will certainly pay attention to the blog published by Hive Systems regarding this table – Are Your Passwords in the Green?

Test how secure is your password

If you want to test the strength of your passwords, the website How secure is my password?, as the name suggests, can tell you if you need to change it.
Click here to launch the PASSWORD TEST PAGE.

Research of frequently used passwords

The team of the password management company NordPass made a list of the most common passwords in 2022. The conclusion was that a lot of people are still using very weak passwords. The most common password in the world is probably the most unimaginative – the notorious “password” that hackers need exactly one second to crack. The same goes for the second and third most popular passwords “123456” and “123456789”.

An independent group of cybersecurity experts was given the same task – analysis of a database of three terabytes in order to establish a list of the most common and worst passwords. NordPass published this list, which found heaps of incredible and warning weaknesses. Five million people around the world use the word “password” for a password. In the list of 20 most common passwords, 18 of them can be cracked in less than one second.

If your password is on this list, you need to change it urgently. This is NordPass’ list of the 20 most common passwords:

• • password
• • 123456
• • 123456789
• • guest
• • qwerty
• • 12345678
• • 111111
• • 12345
• • col123456
• • 123123
• • 1234567
• • 1234
• • 1234567890
• • 000000
• • 555555
• • 666666
• • 123321
• • 654321
• • 7777777
• • 123

One of the very high-quality password managers, Bitwarden, revealed that 31 percent of surveyed Americans had experienced a security data breach in the past 18 months. In order not to be part of that statistic, follow these 6 important instructions for setting a complex and strong password:

Six instructions for creating a strong password

1) The number of characters or the length of the password plays a very important role, especially with tools for brutally and violently cracking your password, so the password should have at least 12 characters.

2) The complexity of the password is equally important, so for strong protection, numbers, lowercase letters, uppercase letters and special characters must be included.

3) Avoid replacing letters with common numbers and symbols (so-called Leet speak), such as “3ncryp710n” instead of “Encryption” or “G0r@n” instead of “Goran” (hackers easily understand them),

4) You can use long phrases instead of very complex (and difficult to remember) passwords. To create a password, you can use phrases of at least 4 words – e.g. “SkyIs+TheLIMIT“.

5) Your password must not contain information such as:

• • model or number plate of your vehicle,
• • your pet’s name,
• • address, phone, city,
• • some important dates for you (birthdays and anniversaries),
• • the name of your friend, child or any family member,
• • your social security number, identity card or passport number,
• • or any other information that can be easily linked to you.

6) Never recycle old passwords or use the same password on multiple accounts. A common mistake that most users make is reusing old passwords on an account or on multiple accounts. The danger is that if that password becomes compromised, it means that other accounts using that password would also be at risk of being hacked.

Password Managers

The problem of accumulating a large number of passwords that the user needs to remember has long been recognized in the computer world. The solution was found in password managers. Password managers are software that, after installation, collect all your passwords in one place and allow you instant access to, for example, a website without having to remember your username and password.

The advantage of password managers is that they allow very complex passwords for your login, and you only have to remember one master password that is determined by the password manager. It is very important to note that if you have a bad master password it can also be detected by brute force password cracking tools.

According to the latest tests and research, here is the list of the best password managers in 2024:

• • NordPass
• • RoboForm
• • Dashlane
• • Total Password
• • Keeper
• • Bitwarden
• • Proton Pass
• • 1Password
• • Bitdefender PM
• • Sticky Password

Some choose to keep a password book, which should logically be accessible only to you. This is not the best solution if your work is of such a nature that you spend a lot of time on the move or sitting with a few other people in the office.

If you have forgotten your password or have some other problem with your password that you do not know how to solve on your own, we can help you

PC-Servis – 061 924 009

Author: Nedim Bosnić