Generate Password
In our increasingly digital world, passwords are the first line of defense for our sensitive data.
Whether email accounts, online banking or social networks: a strong password is essential to prevent unauthorized access.
But what makes a password really secure and how can you effectively increase its complexity?
The answer often lies in the targeted use of randomness, as offered by modern password generators.
Contents
- Tool: Generate Password
- Why is a strong password so important?
- Complexity
- Attacks
- Consequences of Leaks
- Generated Passwords
- Summary
Tool: Generate Password
Please choose length and characters to use.
Why is a strong password so important?
A weak or easy-to-guess password is like an open door for cyber criminals. The consequences can be devastating: from identity theft and financial losses to the misuse of personal information.
Many users fall back on simple words, dates of birth or easy-to-remember combinations out of convenience. This is exactly what attackers take advantage of.
Complexity
The strength of a password is measured by its complexity.
The more complex it is, the more difficult it is for attackers to crack it. The key factors for increasing password complexity are, first of all, length and character variety.
Length
The longer a password, the more possible combinations there are.
This is intuitively obvious.
If the 'password' consists of only one digit 0-9, it only takes 10 attempts to find it. In other words, the probability of finding it directly by chance is 10%. For two-digit passwords, it is significantly lower at 1%, etc.
In fact, it is even more common, as some are preferred for numbers of a certain length.
- 0-9: The 7 would be chosen with a higher probability. Followed by 3.
- 00-99: It would tend to be a birth year.
- 000-999: 123 is chosen above average.
- 0000-9999: 1234 is a popular choice, as is 1004, for example. Again, it could also be a year of birth or a date itself.
A minimum length of 12 characters is often recommended these days, but 16 or more is better.
Character variety
In addition to the length, the variety of characters in particular increases the complexity. There are only 10 digits. With 26 letters, there are many more possibilities.
A mix of different character types therefore makes a password exponentially more secure. These include:
- 10 digits (0-9)
- 26 lowercase characters (a-z)
- 26 uppercase characters (A-Z)
You could also use special characters. The tool does not use them, as some software does not accept some.
- ?? special characters (!, ?, #, %, usw.)
But of course you can easily add special characters to the generated password.
It is not advisable to use characters that are not available on every keyboard or that would be coded differently under certain circumstances. This could result in you simply not being able to type/enter/transfer it on another device.
Attacks
A common method of cracking passwords is the so-called brute force attack. This involves software automatically trying all possible character combinations until the correct password is found.
The shorter and simpler the password, the quicker such an attack will be successful.
A password that consists only of lowercase letters and is 8 characters long has significantly fewer possible combinations (268 = 208 827 064 576) as a password of the same length that also contains capital letters and numbers ((26+26+10)8 = 218 340 105 584 896).
In other words, more than 1000 times. Despite the short length.
Brute force is supported by increasing computing power, which makes it possible to carry out many times more attempts in the same amount of time.
Accordingly, reasonable systems only allow a certain number of attempts before it is restricted or artificially slowed down.
But if, for example, the account is not blocked, it can be tried again after a waiting period.
The account is generally not blocked, as otherwise anyone could easily block someone else's account by entering something a few times.
And - as already mentioned - not all possible combinations need to be tested blindly, as there are patterns and preferences, especially if the system has certain specifications or even restrictions. A numeric, 6-digit PIN is then often 123456 or a date of birth.
Advantage of generated passwords over real passwords
But even if you can choose freely at the core, many people tend to use existing words or simple variations of them as passwords.
But the supposed security provided by longer passwords is deceptive. This is because words are particularly susceptible to so-called dictionary attacks, a special form of brute force attack in which attackers try out entire dictionaries and lists of frequently used passwords.
Even slight modifications by replacing characters with similar-looking special characters (e.g. $ instead of S) are common and are being tested.
Consequences of Leaks
It is also supported by data leaks, where sensitive data falls into the hands of criminals. That is bad enough.
However, cases where passwords have been stored in a readable (i.e. not hashed) form are particularly critical.
This allows patterns to be analyzed and particularly popular passwords to be identified.
Passwords such as 1234, 12345, 123456 are not a myth, but a reality and widely used.
This means that attackers have an alarming probability of finding a valid password with just a few attempts.
Generated Passwords
This is exactly where randomly generated passwords come into their own.
They consist of an arbitrary sequence of characters and lack any logical structure or personal reference.
This makes them practically invulnerable to dictionary attacks and increases the effort required for brute force attacks immensely.
Passwortd Generator
The tool takes away the hassle of coming up with complex and random passwords. It gives you full control over the desired complexity:
- Select your character combination:
- lowercase characters (a-z)
- uppercase characters (A-Z)
- digits (0-9)
You can select any combination of these character types.
- Determine the length: Specify the desired number of characters for your password.
After your selection, the tool generates a strong, random password that meets the criteria you specify. Free from personal preference or subjective choice.
Secure by Default
The default setting uses all three classes and sets the length to 32 characters. This allows 6232 combnations.
6232 is such a huge number that it goes beyond all notions of everyday quantities - it is larger than the number of grains of sand on Earth, the stars in the universe or the number of seconds since the Big Bang, but still smaller than the number of atoms in the universe.
Link
You will also be shown a link. You can bookmark this link and create further passwords with just one click.
The link is completely neutral and has nothing to do with you. It only conveys the configuration you are using, i.e. choice of character sets and length.
Summary
Using strong, randomly generated passwords is a fundamental step in securing your digital identity.
Use the possibilities of our password generator to significantly increase the complexity of your passwords and make life as difficult as possible for attackers. Your data will thank you for it.