Why standard passwords do not cut it anymore

The majority of computer users use weak passwords when they register for online services, create Windows accounts and other activities that require them to pick a password. The only situation where a stronger password is selected is when a service forces them to do so. Most Internet services do not, probably because of fear that many users leave the account creation screen when they run into password creation troubles (12+ characters, 1+ number and special char).
There are two main reasons why weak passwords are selected by a lot of Internet users. The first is because it is easier to remember and there does not seem to be an immanent danger in doing so. The service would request a stronger password if it would not be secure, right? And they surely know best. The second, because they can.
Attackers use a couple of methods to decrypt passwords. The two most common methods are brute forcing and dictionary attacks. In brute forcing, all possible password combinations are tested starting with aaa or whatever the minimum required password is up to about eight characters tops. Why eight? Because afterwards, it takes years to get results if you use a home setup to crack the passwords.
Ars Technica ran a story yesterday about a 25-gpu cluster that cracks every standard Windows password of eight characters or less, in less than six hours. The machine, designed specifically for brute forcing algorithms can attack 45 other algorithms at speeds that were previously not in the realm of possibility for home usage.
The security researcher who build the machine tested its predecessor against the leaked LinkedIn password database. The result? 90% of all 6.5 million passwords were cracked by it by using a combination of brute forcing and a 500 million strong word list. With the help of the new machine, the attack would have lasted only a quarter of the time. While the old machine's 15.5 billion guesses are remarkable, the new one's 63 billion against Sha1 (the LinkedIn algorithm) are raising the ante once more.
While remarkable, it needs to be noted that this only applies to offline attacks, where a password database or file has been retrieved and is available locally. The speed depends a lot on the algorithm used. MD5 for instance maxes out at 180G/s while slower hashes like bcrypt (05) at 71k/s.
Adding additional characters to your passwords raise the game significantly as well. While the machine is capable of brute forcing eight or less character passwords using fast algorithms used by many sites on today's Internet, it will run into a brick wall when doing so for longer passwords. Two additional characters will increase the processing time to years for instance.
It needs to be noted that attackers usually use a combination of dictionary attacks and brute forcing. A dictionary attack tests a list of words against the database which is why one should never select dictionary words, e.g. "password", "computer" or "princess", or a modified dictionary word, e.g. "password1", "Micro$oft" or "princ3ss" to protect their accounts.
The only feasible approach is using a password manager to create strong unique passwords every time you sign up for a service. You can use an offline password manager like KeePass for that or an online manager like LastPass. For Windows and other operating systems, I'd suggest to encrypt the hard drive with a program like DiskCryptor to protect the data on the drive against attacks.
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Doesn’t Windows 8 know that www. or http:// are passe ?
Well it is a bit difficulty to distinguish between name.com domains and files for instance.
I know a service made by google that is similar to Google bookmarks.
http://www.google.com/saved
@Ashwin–Thankful you delighted my comment; who knows how many “gamers” would have disagreed!
@Martin
The comments section under this very article (3 comments) is identical to the comments section found under the following article:
https://www.ghacks.net/2023/08/15/netflix-is-testing-game-streaming-on-tvs-and-computers/
Not sure what the issue is, but have seen this issue under some other articles recently but did not report it back then.
Omg a badge!!!
Some tangible reward lmao.
It sucks that redditors are going to love the fuck out of it too.
With the cloud, there is no such thing as unlimited storage or privacy. Stop relying on these tech scums. Purchase your own hardware and develop your own solutions.
This is a certified reddit cringe moment. Hilarious how the article’s author tries to dress it up like it’s anything more than a png for doing the reddit corporation’s moderation work for free (or for bribes from companies and political groups)
Almost al unlmited services have a real limit.
And this comment is written on the dropbox article from August 25, 2023.
First comment > @ilev said on August 4, 2012 at 7:53 pm
For the God’s sake, fix the comments soon please! :[
Yes. Please. Fix the comments.
With Google Chrome, it’s only been 1,500 for some time now.
Anyone who wants to force me in such a way into buying something that I can get elsewhere for free will certainly never see a single dime from my side. I don’t even know how stupid their marketing department is to impose these limits on users instead of offering a valuable product to the paying faction. But they don’t. Even if you pay, you get something that is also available for free elsewhere.
The algorithm has also become less and less savvy in terms of e.g. English/German translations. It used to be that the bot could sort of sense what you were trying to say and put it into different colloquialisms, which was even fun because it was like, “I know what you’re trying to say here, how about…” Now it’s in parts too stupid to translate the simplest sentences correctly, and the suggestions it makes are at times as moronic as those made by Google Translations.
If this is a deep-learning AI that learns from users’ translations and the phrases they choose most often – which, by the way, is a valuable, moneys worthwhile contribution of every free user to this project: They invest their time and texts, thereby providing the necessary data for the AI to do the thing as nicely as they brag about it in the first place – alas, the more unprofessional users discovered the translator, the worse the language of this deep-learning bot has become, the greater the aggregate of linguistically illiterate users has become, and the worse the language of this deep-learning bot has become, as it now learns the drivel of every Tom, Dick and Harry out there, which is why I now get their Mickey Mouse language as suggestions: the inane language of people who can barely spell the alphabet, it seems.
And as a thank you for our time and effort in helping them and their AI learn, they’ve lowered the limit from what was once 5,000 to now 1,500…? A big “fuck off” from here for that! Not a brass farthing from me for this attitude and behaviour, not in a hundred years.
When will you put an end to the mess in the comments?
Ghacks comments have been broken for too long. What article did you see this comment on? Reply below. If we get to 20 different articles we should all stop using the site in protest.
I posted this on [https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/28/reddit-enforces-user-activity-tracking-on-site-to-push-advertising-revenue/] so please reply if you see it on a different article.
Comment redirected me to [https://www.ghacks.net/2012/08/04/add-search-the-internet-to-the-windows-start-menu/] which seems to be the ‘real’ article it is attached to
Comment redirected me to [https://www.ghacks.net/2012/08/04/add-search-the-internet-to-the-windows-start-menu/] which seems to be the ‘real’ article it is attached to
Article Title: Reddit enforces user activity tracking on site to push advertising revenue
Article URL: https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/28/reddit-enforces-user-activity-tracking-on-site-to-push-advertising-revenue/
No surprises here. This is just the beginning really. I cannot see a valid reason as to why anyone would continue to use the platform anymore when there are enough alternatives fill that void.
I’m not sure if there is a point in commenting given that comments seem to appear under random posts now, but I’ll try… this comment is for https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/28/reddit-enforces-user-activity-tracking-on-site-to-push-advertising-revenue/
My temporary “solution”, if you can call it that, is to use a VPN (Mullvad in my case) to sign up for and access Reddit via a European connection. I’m doing that with pretty much everything now, at least until the rest of the world catches up with GDPR. I don’t think GDPR is a magical privacy solution but it’s at least a first step.