TIL my old password system was a joke

Had all my accounts on a single password with slight variations. A friend in IT asked me to guess how long it would take to crack it, said 'maybe 3 hours'. He ran it through a tool, said 17 seconds. Anyone else have a wake-up call like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

walker.cole12d ago

Remember when we thought adding a number at the end was safe? I had a similar shock with an old password, it was cracked almost instantly.

anna_ross1911d ago

Honestly though, isn't a long password with a number still way better than a short one?

brian_rivera5911d ago

Yeah, that's a classic mistake. The bots are built to check for that exact pattern first. You need a few random words or a longer phrase instead.