Researchers show that most passwords are not as secure as hoped. And many passwords can be cracked with little financial effort.
Pretty much everyone uses passwords. Some log in to YouTube, others to their online banking, and still others log into Steam or their PS5.
Researchers from the security company Kaspersky have now found out that more than half of all passwords are considered insecure and can be cracked quite quickly. Depending on the strength of the password, this varies between one hour and less than a minute.
With a GeForce RTX 5090, many passwords can be cracked in a short time
Why is it so fast? The researchers explain that this is also related to technological developments. There is always faster hardware that makes cracking much easier:
Attackers owe this speed boost to graphics processors that are becoming more powerful year by year.
Unfortunately, passwords remain just as weak as ever, while it is becoming faster and easier to crack them year by year. Today, 60% of all passwords can be cracked in less than an hour; two years ago, this figure was still 59%. However, the truly frightening thing is something else: Almost half of all passwords (48%) are cracked in less than a minute.
In their example, they explain that with a single Nvidia RTX 5090, already 60 percent of passwords could be cracked in less than an hour, a whole 48 percent even in less than 60 seconds.
Some may now point out that you would first need the corresponding graphics card, and it costs 3,500 euros when looking at the current prices on Geizhals.de. However, you can now also rent an RTX 5090 just as easily for a few euros in the cloud and thus crack passwords. Therefore, you no longer need to invest 3,500 euros for a GPU to crack passwords. The team explained that the financial effort is very low.
Another problem that researchers point out: Most users would create a password and then never change it again. A password would remain identical for years or only changed with a number at most. However, this also shows according to researchers that users have not become more cautious. As an additional problem, it comes that the technology is getting better to crack passwords.
You constantly need passwords on your PC, Xbox, PS5, or for banking. MeinMMO gives you some tips and explains why strong passwords are important. You can read more about this in the following article directly with us: 7 tips for strong passwords and why you need them at all
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