Artificial intelligence is on everyone’s lips. However, the technology can not only be used for the benefit of society – criminals can also benefit from the help of an AI.
A recent study examined how quickly typical passwords can be cracked using artificial intelligence. To do this, the researchers analyzed a huge data set with passwords of different strengths.
PassGAN was used to hack the passwords. PassGAN uses the Generative Adversarial Network (GAN) to independently learn from existing password leaks.
The verified passwords come from a major leak from 2009. At that time, around 32 million access data were stolen from the RockYou company. After the researchers filtered out all passwords that were less than 4 or more than 18 characters, they were left with 15.6 million to study.
Almost 51 percent, i.e. a little more than half of all passwords, could be decrypted by the AI in less than a minute. If you gave the artificial intelligence a complete day, it was even 71 percent of all passwords.
In doing so, what was actually obvious was once again impressively demonstrated. The longer and more complex the password, the safer you are from a hacker attack. The AI also needs several years to crack a password with at least 10 characters and a combination of lowercase letters, uppercase letters and special characters. With 8 characters, however, it is only a few hours.
According to the researchers, you should use passwords of 15 characters or more to be on the safe side. In addition, you should make sure that you never use passwords twice. Otherwise, all accounts are directly affected in the event of a leak or a successful phishing attack. In theory, you can change the password for each platform individually, as long as the underlying system is not too obvious. Otherwise, of course, there are also the good old password managers.
Quelle: Home Security Heroes