Experts warn nearly half of the world’s passwords can easily be cracked in just a few minutes


Using real-world samples recovered from the dark web, Kaspersky researchers have tested how long it would take to crack most passwords, and found that almost half of the world’s passwords can be cracked in less than a minute.

Additionally, the research shows that within an hour, that number rises to three out of five passwords.

Armed with this knowledge, the researchers then explored what differentiates a strong password from a weak one.

Read more…
Source:  TechRadar News


Sign up for the Cyber Security Review Newsletter
The latest cyber security news and insights delivered right to your inbox


Related:

  • THOR: Previously Unseen PlugX Variant Deployed During Microsoft Exchange Server Attacks by PKPLUG Group

    July 27, 2021

    While monitoring the Microsoft Exchange Server attacks in March 2021, Unit 42 researchers identified a PlugX variant delivered as a post-exploitation remote access tool (RAT) to one of the compromised servers. The variant observed by Unit 42 is unique in that it contains a change to its core source code: the replacement of its trademark ...

  • UC San Diego Health discloses data breach after phishing attack

    July 27, 2021

    UC San Diego Health, the academic health system of the University of California, San Diego, has disclosed a data breach after the compromise of some employees’ email accounts. UC San Diego Health is one of the nation’s best hospitals, being repeatedly ranked as the best health care system in San Diego, according to the 2021-2022 U.S. ...

  • Threat Actors Exploit Misconfigured Apache Hadoop YARN

    July 27, 2021

    The misconfiguration and resulting exposure of cloud services is one of the most prevalent risks in the Linux threat landscape. We previously analyzed incidents related to this security concern, such as an exposed Docker API being abused by threat actors in the wild and exposed Redis instances that threat actors actively search. This blog post will ...

  • LockBit ransomware now encrypts Windows domains using group policies

    July 27, 2021

    A new version of the LockBit 2.0 ransomware has been found that automates the encryption of a Windows domain using Active Directory group policies. The LockBit ransomware operation launched in September 2019 as a ransomware-as-a-service, where threat actors are recruited to breach networks and encrypt devices. In return, the recruited affiliates earn 70-80% of a ransom payment, ...

  • ‘Praying Mantis’ threat actor targeting Windows internet-facing servers with malware

    July 27, 2021

    Windows internet-facing servers are being targeted by a new threat actor operating “almost completely in-memory,” according to a new report from the Sygnia Incident Response team. The report said that the advanced and persistent threat actor — which they have named “Praying Mantis” or “TG1021” — mostly used deserialization attacks to load a completely volatile, custom ...

  • Researchers warn of unpatched Kaseya Unitrends backup vulnerabilities

    July 26, 2021

    Security researchers warn of three new zero-day vulnerabilities in the Kaseya Unitrends service and advise users not to expose the service to the Internet. Kaseya Unitrends is a cloud-based enterprise backup and disaster recovery solution that is offered as a stand-alone solution or as an add-on for the Kaseya VSA remote management platform. Read more… Source: Bleeping Computer