Tuesday Tip #2: Why not use a passphrase?

Email sent by Rene Thatcher on October 12th 2022. Message written by Steve Millington.

Tuesday Tip #2 is:  The longer the password the better!  Why not use a passphrase?  #cybersecurityawarenessmonth22

No one gets excited about typing in a long password to access websites.  Especially if it is something that they use frequently.  However, a lot of the things we access all of the time contain the most sensitive information about us that cyber criminals are looking to acquire. 

Using a long and complex password is a great way to help protect that information.  The longer and more complex your password is, the more difficult it is for a cyber criminal to use technology to “crack” your password.  In IT we call this a “Brute Force” password attack.

Here are some recommendations that will help you avoid a “Brute Force” attack

  • Create long passwords – The longer the better.  The more characters there are in a password, the larger the number of computations a computer program will have to undertake to figure out what your password is.
  • Create complex passwords – Use spaces, upper and lower case, numbers, and symbols to increase the complexity of your password.
  • Use a passphrase, which is a sentence like password with the complexity mentioned above.
    • Example:  Cyber 22winAgiftfor#12PersontoWritemedirectly!!

Here is an interesting chart from Hive Systems, https://www.hivesystems.io/password-tablea, leading cyber security company, that outlines how long it takes for a cyber criminal to crack a password with “Brute Force” using current technology capabilities.

Characters

Numbers Only

Lowercase Letters

Upper and Lower Case Letters

Numbers, Upper/Lower Case Letters

Numbers, Upper/Lower Case, Symbols

4

Instantly

Instantly

Instantly

Instantly

Instantly

5

Instantly

Instantly

Instantly

Instantly

Instantly

6

Instantly

Instantly

Instantly

Instantly

Instantly

7

Instantly

Instantly

2 Sec

7 Sec

31 Sec

8

Instantly

Instantly

2 Min

7 Min

39 Min

9

Instantly

10 Sec

1 Hour

7 Hour

2 days

10

Instantly

4 Min

3 Days

3 Weeks

5 Months

11

Instantly

2 Hr

5 Months

3 Years

34 Years

12

2 Sec

2 Days

24 Years

200 Years

3k Years

13

19 Sec

2 Months

1k Years

12k Years

202k Years

14

3 Min

4 Years

64k Years

750k Years

16m Years

15

32 Min

100 Years

3m Years

46m Years

1bn Years

16

5 Hr

3k Years

173m Years

3bn Years

92bn Years

17

2 Days

69k Years

9bn Years

179bn Years

7tn Years

18

3 Weeks

2m Years

467bn Years

11tn Years

438tn Years

 

 

Details

Article ID: 151791
Created
Wed 10/12/22 2:54 PM
Modified
Wed 10/12/22 4:03 PM