Hackers Can Use AI to Guess Your Passwords – Protect Your Data
Artificial intelligence (AI) has made our lives easier in many areas, from automating tasks to finding nearby restaurants. However, only some things AI does are in our best interest. Using AI to crack passwords has also increased because artificial intelligence can hack some passwords in seconds. Hacker applications of AI include intelligent password-guessing techniques designed to evade detection.
Home Security Heroes ran over 15.6 million common passwords through PassGAN, an AI password cracker. The report found that the software could crack any seven-digit password in less than six minutes—even if the password contained symbols, numbers, and lower and uppercase letters. Additionally, the AI cracked 51% of these usual types of passwords within a minute, 65% within an hour, 71% within a day, and 81% within a month. These are worrying results. Taking online security very seriously, personally and professionally would be best.
Examine your password list, identify any passwords under eight characters, and replace them with better passwords, preferably 10-12 characters long and complex. Use phrases that you can remember, e.g., ILikeChocol@te92, Wh@tyouseeisWH@youget45$. When given the option, choose the two-factor authentication, where you have to receive a text or email with a code to be used once along with your password. Having different passwords for each website, device, or service. Don’t worry about remembering all these passwords; use a password manager, like Dashlane or LastPass, to store your passwords and generate unique combinations of a specific length for you. Use long passwords that include numbers, lower- and uppercase letters, and symbols that are not easily understood or gleaned from other information, like your birthdate, anniversary, or graduation.
AI can help hackers expand hacker operations through automation, reducing the reliance on human labor and thus enhancing the likelihood of success. AI increases the chance of spear phishing, which is a type of phishing that includes information known to be of interest to you as the target, like current events or financial information. Hackers target people with fraudulent text messages, emails, phone calls, invoices, and more to get hold of sensitive personal data. AI empowers hackers to target more organizations with more precise and targeted attacks, all with a reduced workforce and can operate 24/7/365. This allows for deeper penetration into a network by targeting more assets and people.
Hackers use Open Source Intelligence tools to collect publicly available data from search engines, social media, professional social networks, published articles and academic papers, government reports, the dark web, and more. AI can skim pictures found on a potential user’s social media to see a recurrence of text, such as a dog’s name tag, and this can be coupled with the ability to listen to a user’s voice in postings and hear the emphasis on certain words being said. Then, AI can intelligently infer the users’ propensity toward a password or phrase.
Posting too much information online—like on Facebook or Instagram—about your life is not a good idea if you’re concerned about security. It can provide information about your whereabouts, assets, and family. Be careful about posting that you are on vacation, as it can mean your house is not occupied and your house is a target. Using this as a reality check, AI will learn much quicker about such occurrences, better time an intrusion, and possibly discover passwords or gaps and attempt logins during a vulnerable period. When you sign up for an account, your birthdate may not be so critical for the account. Think before entering it and whether is it necessary, like the IRS, or ask what will happen to the data.
Home Security Heroes: AI password cracking report – Test your passwords for peace of mind.