Cybersecurity experts reveal how safe your password actually is and how long it’ll take hackers to guess

While you might think your accounts are safe, cybersecurity experts have revealed that hackers can sometimes ‘instantly’ access your accounts if they aren’t strong enough.

Since we basically have everything online, having a password on your many different accounts is basically a modern necessity.

While you can remain anonymous on many websites, if you plan on doing banking, logging into social media, or buying stuff from Amazon, chances are you have an online account that requires a password.

But how strong are they?

What hackers look like as they try and brute force your passwords...I imagine (Getty Stock Image)

Let’s hope you aren’t opting for ‘password’ or ‘1234’ or something equally simple... but even if you try something a little more complicated, according to cybersecurity experts there are still ways in which hackers can get into your account.

Depending on the quality of the password, hackers can likely access your account in 46 minutes or after 463 quintillion years according to the cybersecurity firm Hive Systems Password Table.

For example, according to the table, a password that uses 7 characters and only uses lowercase letters can be brute forced in 20 hours.

This contrasts massively from a password that uses 8 characters and includes numbers, upper case, and lower case letters.

Just so we are all on the same page, for a hacker to ‘brute force’ your password simply means they use a trial-and-error method to try every possible combination of characters to crack your password.

Check out the table below.

How long it could take a hacker to brute force your password (Hive Systems)

The Hive password table was first designed back in 2020 to show how fast hackers could try this strategy and was based on data from Howsecureismypassword.net.

Senior product manager at cybersecurity company Surfshark, Sarunas Sereika, has previously spoken to UNILAD about the importance of good passwords and how it can help keep your data safe.

He said: “[To protect yourself you should] have strong habits on using your passwords.

“You should use different password for every different server - this, and use two step verification. Use your phone or authentication apps - that would help to prevent phishing attacks.”

He also insisted it was important to ensure you were using the most up to date version of apps and products to help prevent hackers not only attempting to bypass passwords but conducting cyberattacks to steal your data.

He said: “Starting from the individual, so at a very basic level, we have to just keep your software up to date. Sometimes it means you need a newer phone, in this case, but keep your software up to date to eliminate any back doors for hackers."