After exhausting those wordlists, they will try all of the words again with common substitutions: capitalizing the first letter ( december → December), making common letter-for-number swaps ( december → d3cemb3r), and other common password variations.In less than one second, 30% of all passwords will be cracked. Also, lists of all English words, all names, dates, and so on. The top 10,000 passwords is a good place to start. First, the hackers start with a bunch of wordlists.The method for cracking usually looks something like this: Is it really that easy to crack a password? How is it done, exactly? Type it a few times, and you'll have it committed to memory. Even a mix of these patterns, such as + will be straightforward to crack.Ĭompare those to a passphrase: Password Patternįour or more randomly chosen words (example: mergers decade labeled manager) If your password resembles any of these examples, it is instantly crackable. Sort of memorable, but you may forget which letters are substituted for numbers. Try it in the box at the top.)Īn easily-typed spatial word (example: qwerty or aaaaaaaa)Īn important number, such as a date or zip code (example: 03261981)Ī word with trivial letter→number substitutions (example: S4nfr4n) Then, we add some spice with a capital letter, some numbers, or a symbol.ĭoes your password fall into this group? Bad Password Patternsġ8 milliseconds (Seriously. We base them on things we can remember, such as names, locations, dates or just common English words. Try as we might, humans usually end up using one of a few predictable patterns when creating passwords. The famous xkcd comic got it right: humans have been trained to use hard-to-remember passwords that are easy for computers to guess.

Share It Tweet It Fork It Why should I use a random passphrase?īecause humans are terrible at creating secure passwords.

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