February 5, 2009 at 10:52Coming up with complex passwords is easy
It's no secret that the simpler the password, the greater the chance for hackers to access the user's personal data. Despite this, many still choose easily cracked passwords, because then they are easier to remember.
Recently, an 18-year-old hacker using a password-cracking program managed to hack Twitter blogging service and gain access to three dozen celebrity accounts, including US President Barack Obama and singer Britney Spears. The cracker heartily mocked the American president, sending out on his behalf proposals to other bloggers to participate in the survey and earn $ 500. Britney Spears got even more. The hacker pleased the readers with a detailed description of her “charms”.
How it affected the reputation of the service is easy to guess. However, hacking might not have happened if the portal administrators had not chosen the easy password - happiness. About 5.4 trillion combinations are required to decrypt a password from 9 letters unrelated in meaning. Given that this English word is written in lowercase letters, a million combinations were enough for the hacker. If the password involved not only lowercase letters, but also uppercase letters, as well as numbers and other symbols, then the possible number of combinations would reach 630.250 trillion.
Hacking the Twitter service is a vivid example of the fact that any, even the most reliable protection leaves room for a vulnerability associated with the presence of a human factor. The administrator of Twitter himself became the smith of his "happiness."
Using the password happinessisgood (happiness is good) would be a much more successful solution. Its decryption requires enumeration of about 1.6 billion trillion combinations. However, for security fans there is an even more powerful option - “happinessis2good”. Obviously, a password cracker will never master such a combination.
Returning to the beginning of the topic, the question arises: is the password “happinessisgood” really more difficult to remember than “happiness”? Then why not start using it? Choosing the second option, the user himself consciously makes himself vulnerable to hacker attacks.
Recently, an 18-year-old hacker using a password-cracking program managed to hack Twitter blogging service and gain access to three dozen celebrity accounts, including US President Barack Obama and singer Britney Spears. The cracker heartily mocked the American president, sending out on his behalf proposals to other bloggers to participate in the survey and earn $ 500. Britney Spears got even more. The hacker pleased the readers with a detailed description of her “charms”.
How it affected the reputation of the service is easy to guess. However, hacking might not have happened if the portal administrators had not chosen the easy password - happiness. About 5.4 trillion combinations are required to decrypt a password from 9 letters unrelated in meaning. Given that this English word is written in lowercase letters, a million combinations were enough for the hacker. If the password involved not only lowercase letters, but also uppercase letters, as well as numbers and other symbols, then the possible number of combinations would reach 630.250 trillion.
Hacking the Twitter service is a vivid example of the fact that any, even the most reliable protection leaves room for a vulnerability associated with the presence of a human factor. The administrator of Twitter himself became the smith of his "happiness."
Using the password happinessisgood (happiness is good) would be a much more successful solution. Its decryption requires enumeration of about 1.6 billion trillion combinations. However, for security fans there is an even more powerful option - “happinessis2good”. Obviously, a password cracker will never master such a combination.
Returning to the beginning of the topic, the question arises: is the password “happinessisgood” really more difficult to remember than “happiness”? Then why not start using it? Choosing the second option, the user himself consciously makes himself vulnerable to hacker attacks.