Passwords Should Exceed 8 Characters For Heightened Security, Researchers Suggest | Here's Why

Joseph Henry, Tech Times 21 March 2022, 03:03 am

Your online password should exceed eight characters so you can avoid the potential hacking incidents from the hackers, according to the latest research. If your previous code is fewer than this number, you might want to think of changing it to achieve heightened security and privacy.

Passwords Should Have More Than Eight Characters

Passwords Should Exceed 8 Characters For Heightened Security, Researchers Suggest | Here's Why

(Photo : Towfiqu barbhuiya from Unsplash)
The Hiver Systems recommended that passwords should not be fewer than eight characters, according to the latest study.

As CNBC recently spotted via Hive Systems, modern hackers can now easily crackdown your passwords if they are weak. As such, those with four to 11 characters are very vulnerable to instant hacking.

The Richmond-headquartered cybersecurity company wrote that an average hacker only needs at least eight hours to fully crack your password. Regardless if it has combined symbols, uppercase and lowercase letters, and even numbers, this won't be a complex task for a person who has some experience in doing it.

The Hive researchers also included in their findings that it will take 10 seconds for the hackers to know your password with nine lowercase letters.

If your password has 10 characters, this could take a lot of time for the hacker. The projected time could take from minutes to days. Meanwhile, it will take the hacker two hours before discovering an 11-character password with lowercase letters.

Interestingly, a seven-character password can be detected in just two seconds. This consists of both uppercase and lowercase letters.

If you want to improve your account security, you can use an 11-character password relying on the various letter capitalizations. This could take a very long time, up to five months.

The experts said that using a mixed uppercase and lowercase in your four to six-character password is not safe either. Adding a symbol won't do any good as well.

For them, having a lengthy password is the right way to avoid hackers online. You should take note that it's always important to add another letter to your current code so you can take advantage of maximum security for your confidential information.

Longer Passwords Will Doom an Average Hacker

In another article from Phone Arena, there's a bizarre fact that you need to know about online passwords, particularly the longer ones.

An average hacker will not be able to crack your account if your password is 18 characters long (combination of symbols, letters, and numbers. It will take him up to 438 trillion years to know it alone.

For a clearer picture of the study, the Hive researchers posted a graph that shows the number of characters of a password and other related information.

Elsewhere, Tech Times previously shared the most common passwords that Americans use. The tech site also wrote a guide on you can create a strong and unbreakable code so you can better protect your account and financial assets online.

This article is owned by Tech Times

Written by Joseph Henry