AI might crack your password in less than a minute. Here's how you can secure your account

Home Security Heroes, a group of online security experts, have found Artificial Intelligence or AI can crack more than 50 per cent of generally used passwords in less than a minute. The study focuses on an AI password cracker called PassGAN. They tested a list of 15,680,000 passwords.

The study revealed AI could breach over 51 per cent of passwords in less than 60 seconds. Furthermore, the AI can crack over 65 per cent of the passwords in less than an hour and 81 per cent within 30 days.

However, Artificial Intelligence can crack only easy-to-predict and generic passwords within a minute. AI can easily guess small passwords with small character lengths. For instance, using your name or date of birth as a password makes it generic and easy to guess.

AI takes longer to predict passwords with a combination of characters. The study revealed that passwords with 18 characters or more are safe from AI password crackers. AI will take up to ten months to crack passwords with 18 characters. Furthermore, it is difficult for the AI to break passwords with a mix of symbols, numbers, and upper and lower-case letters. Such passwords are secure as AI could take six quintillion years to decrypt them.

Steps to stay safe from password-cracking AIs

Here are a few steps one can follow to secure their passwords from an AI breach.

1. Avoid using predictable or generic passwords, especially the ones containing only numbers.
2. Passwords must have at least 15 characters and a mix of symbols, numbers and alphabets.
3. Use a password manager to maintain your passwords across various accounts.
4. Use at least two letters (upper and lower-case), numbers, and symbols in the password.
5. Keep changing your passwords every three to six months as a practice.
6. Avoid using one common password for all your accounts.

You can also check whether your password is immune to AI on the official website of Home Security Heroes. The software allows you to check the time in which an AI-based software can crack your password.

What is PassGAN?

GAN in PassGAN stands for Generative Adversarial Network. It eliminates the requirement of manual password analysis and autonomously learns the distribution of real passwords. PassGAN is a threat to cybersecurity as it generates multiple password properties and enhances the quality of generic passwords. Cybercriminals can easily access your passwords using PassGANand gain your personal information. Thus, it is important to regularly update your passwords.

(With inputs from agencies)

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