Joe Hindi / Android Authority
TL; DR
- Cyber security firm Home Security Heroes has published a study on AI and the ability to crack passwords.
- A new AI password cracking tool can crack most six-character passwords and passwords in an instant.
- Passwords with 12 characters or more are considered hard to crack, for now.
With the release of AI tools like Bing Chat and Bard, people are starting to realize how useful AI can be in their daily lives. But like most products used for nefarious purposes, there is a dark side to the technology to consider. One misuse of AI is password cracking. A new study shows how fast today’s AI can figure out your password.
Cyber security firm Home Security Heroes recently published a study on AI and password cracking. Specifically, the researchers looked at a new AI-powered password-cracking tool called PassGAN (Password Generator Adversarial Network).
In the study, the researchers used PassGAN to run a list of more than 15 million passwords. The results showed that 51% of common passwords can be cracked in less than a minute, 65% in less than an hour, 71% in less than a day, and 81% in less than a month.
The team also tabulated the findings. As you can see in the image below, almost all passwords with six characters or less are instantly cracked. According to the company, passwords longer than 18 characters are considered safe with tools like PassGAN. Based on the chart, it takes at least ten months for the device to learn an 18-character password that uses only numbers.
If you want to protect your accounts from such devices, the company recommends using passwords with at least 15 characters. Those passwords must use at least two letters, numbers, and symbols. Avoiding patterns like “1234” is also important. Finally, you should change your passwords regularly and avoid using the same password on other accounts.
While it may be a bit of a hassle, sticking to strong passwords can go a long way to keeping your data safe. And if you’re worried about forgetting a password, you can always use a password manager.