As computer processing speeds continue to advance, it has become increasingly easier for hackers to guess passwords. This has led to the need for longer and more complex passwords. Hive Systems, a cyber security firm, has created a table ranking the vulnerability of passwords based on their character count and diversity of characters used.
According to Hive Systems, a truly secure password should be at least 12 characters long, consisting of a random mixture of numbers, symbols, and both upper and lowercase letters. They have updated their table to better illustrate password vulnerability and have found that passwords consisting only of numbers are the easiest to hack, with even 11-digit passcodes now being instantly guessable. Furthermore, passwords with six characters or less are virtually nonexistent.
Hive Systems has also acknowledged that most websites and services only accept a limited number of special characters. They recommend following the guidelines from the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which suggest using a random and complex eight-character password with a combination of numbers, uppercase and lowercase letters, and special symbols. However, Hive Systems notes that even these passwords can now be cracked in a matter of minutes or even instantly with access to prime cloud computing.
One major factor contributing to the advancement in password cracking speeds is the processing power of consumer-grade graphics cards. Hive Systems initially based their estimates on a 2018 GPU, but as they compared the cracking speeds of the RTX 2080, RTX 3090, and RTX 4090, it became clear that the range of strong passwords is decreasing each year.
In their analysis, Hive Systems considered the time required for a hacker using consumer-budget processing equipment, as well as cases where hackers had access to professional-grade cloud computing resources. They examined the prices and speeds offered by major providers like Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure, as well as independent options where computers can be rented per hour.
One interesting aspect of Hive Systems’ study was their estimation of the hacking power of ChatGPT, a machine-learning algorithm trained on a Microsoft Azure supercomputer. Although they couldn’t directly test the 10,000 A100 GPUs that trained ChatGPT, they were able to make concrete extrapolations based on calculation speeds that correlate to password-cracking speeds.
It’s important to note that Hive Systems’ tables assume that users are employing truly random passwords. Non-randomly generated passwords are much easier and faster to crack because humans tend to be predictable. Additionally, the tables assume that a user’s password has not already been leaked in previous data breaches, so it’s crucial to check the security of your passwords regularly.
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