How easy is it for a hacker to crack your password 2023?
This article is about How easy is it for a hacker to crack your password.
Nowadays, it is easy for most of us to believe that we are completely safe on the web. Modern life forces us to choose one of the endless websites we are a part of. When we consider the real chance that an individual will be hacked in any given year, we find it impossible not to think of something we’ve heard so many computer users say: “It’s not going to happen to me.”
What are the chances of getting hacked & How easy is it for a hacker to crack your password? Looking at a few examples:
A few years ago, the National Cyber Security Alliance estimated the probability of a small business being hacked at 20% each year.
Further figures from the UK show that 2.5 million cyber crimes were reported in Britain in 2014. Despite this being ten percent of the population, KPMG commented on the publication of the study that due to so many unreported incidents, the true number was likely much higher.
This suggests that a compilation of a number of studies puts the annual attack percentage (somehow) at just under 31% – about 1:3. Yes, one could be pedantic about sample size, but these studies are often rather subjective. We’re still getting to 1 in 3 odds of being hacked, even if we’re being careful with the numbers.
It is difficult for users to remember one specific password for each website. This makes it very easy for a single person with minimal knowledge to breach our security and gain access to our information. We are vulnerable. This year, passwords like “123456” are still very popular among people.
We live in a digital world where we do almost any kind of transaction using the internet. We use passwords every day for email and other accounts.
The security policies of many websites leave information completely exposed. Every day people develop a new program or a new technique to break our security. There are articles that explain how a hacker can very easily crack your account password just by using various programs like a simple password guessing program. This program will make several guesses until the password is completely cracked. A program can last a few minutes or a century; it depends on the complexity of the password. Other methods, such as keyloggers, consist of hardware devices attached to your computer that can copy your information through the keywords you use to access accounts. Phone hacking is another way for these people to steal your data. Using programs that can duplicate what you see on your phone makes it relatively easy for them to get your password from your phone.
These hackers can scam anyone who has a personal account. They can spy on what you’re looking for because they know what you’ve been looking for, which is an easy way to give them everything they need.
You might be wondering how exactly you could have gotten hacked? The first thing you should know is that the days when you only had to worry about annoying Windows viruses are long gone. A lot of hacking these days starts with a bit of social engineering and trickery before the real technical stuff.
So, with that in mind, I’ll begin my roundup of some key flavors of hacking activity that I’ve almost fallen victim to recently: phishing.
Phishing is perhaps the most used technique for hackers to get your password because the price and creation is too easy. It consists of creating a fake application or a fake message so that the user supplies all their information to a website that can copy it immediately. Your bank account and your email account are easy targets for these kinds of programs.
Another type of hackers are thieves. Many people using the browser leave their information there. There is no need for a knowledgeable person to get numbers or letters that keep them away from all your data.
Viruses and Trojan horses
Although a traditional antivirus product is still commonly considered the first line of defense in computer security, “old” viruses and trojans seem (subjectively) to be on the decline for cybercriminals. Anti-virus software, email software, and even operating systems themselves have come up against these “traditional” threats in recent years, leading many criminals to more lucrative phishing and the other activities described above.
On the other hand, websites will automatically lock your account after 2 or 3 attempts. If you use a simple password, it’s not that hard to crack.
This type of cracking is when a hacker pretends to be you. If you consider a password made up of letters, numbers and symbols that have roughly 100 combinations per character, a five digit password will have 10 billion combinations, that seems like a lot of time, but a hacker can crack such a password in 10 seconds.
For example, you can put more characters in your password to be more protected:
5 characters = 10 seconds
6 characters = 1000 seconds
7 characters = 1 day
8 characters = 115 days
9 characters = 31 years
10 characters = 3000 years
Here is a list of common ways to use your passwords more effectively:
Capitalize the first letter of the word.
Check all upper/lower case combinations for words.
Randomly insert a number into a word.
Inserting numbers at the end of words.
Inserting numbers at the beginning of words.
Placing the same pattern on both ends, like foobar.
This is why you need long passwords. Hackers can usually crack anything with seven characters or less. They are unlikely to guess a password that consists of nine or more characters combined with symbols. It would take almost a century to crack such a password. People need to be more aware of this if we expect to be safe on the web. We can use several techniques to increase the security of our password. Hackers can use many tricks, dictionary attacks if you use lowercase and uppercase letters, combinations of many letters in symbols with international characters, such as a vowel with an umlaut, which will throw off any password hacker. You should remember this tip whenever you access a new website that requires a secure password.
The protection you get depends on how creative you can be. Remember the common phrase “If you remember it, someone else can figure it out”. The most secure password you can put on your accounts are random passwords that are very hard to remember, but very difficult to do. Research also shows that people can only remember about 10 passwords.
Also Read:Everything you need to know about Ethical Hacking as a Career by Blackhat Pakistan 2023
A special solution is to forget your password. Although it may seem less productive, the best way to remember your password is to create a password that you will forget, random strings give hackers a hard time.
There are also companies that provide you with this kind of service. They protect your accounts from these problems and have programs that can generate multiple passwords in seconds, making your accounts almost unbreakable.
If we store any important information on the web, we have to expect that someone somewhere in the world is waiting to steal it from us. In an age where everything is connected, it is exhausting to hide our information like social media pages.
People are more vulnerable to hackers or scams of any kind. The freedom that social media gives people to see it all in our profile puts us in a very dangerous place if we don’t think about learning about tricks or tips to protect us from these people.
There will be times when you may lose your bank account, credit card code or email without even realizing it. This kind of knowledge is something we have to acquire. The Internet has many advantages, but also disadvantages. It has a dark part that can be reduced if we follow the recommendations. Not only with programs that can generate passwords in a few seconds.
Hackers can redirect our information to themselves. One of the most used ways for these people to get your information is through malicious websites, where if we click on one of the many links they have, they will send some virus to your computer that can crash it or copy all your files instantly. They may lure you with the promise of winning something, some chat or an invitation from a social networking site; there are many ways to get into one of them. You can avoid them if you don’t visit some sites that have a bad reputation. You can update your computer and antivirus software to prevent threats from spreading.
Using black hat or SEO (Search Engine Optimization) techniques, hackers can use these programs to position their website at the top of a web search engine. You must avoid any type of voting on the web, providing personal information online can give hackers free access to your personal accounts. Download apps only from certified sites and don’t go for risky ones or those with bad reviews despite everything we mention in this report.
The most important thing you can do is be comprehensive with your passwords, that’s the main point. It’s very easy for a hacker to crack your password if you don’t follow any of these tips.
Here’s a short list of everything we’ve talked about to protect you:
Be deeply suspicious when online! If you receive an email from the company asking you to change your password, do not click on the link. Go directly to what you know to be their legitimate website.
Never download attachments from sources you don’t know, even if you were convinced you won $1000!
Use a VPN solution like Express VPN for all your online activities to increase your security and privacy and make it harder for people to find out about you and what you do online – it could be used against you by a criminal or provide some other clues for a phishing attack. You can find a list of recommended VPNs for Windows here and for Mac here.
Use anti-virus software and keep it up-to-date – and yes, this applies to Mac users too!
Never reveal anything related to your online life to anyone who calls you on the phone. Microsoft will never call you because they found a problem with your computer.
If you are predictable or use a simple and shortest password for all your accounts, you will get hacked. If you go to some sites that you know are risky and you don’t make any effort to protect your information, you will be attacked. It’s so easy for a skilled hacker to screw you over. The cost of laziness with your web protection can be really high.
Sources
- Get hacked one-in-three
- CompSci Project ideas
- How hackers will crack your password
- Hacker password cracking test
- Your password is easy to crack
