my1login has launched a free online password strength meter to enable Internet users to safely and securely test the strength of their own passwords.
The strength meter rates passwords from ‘very weak’ through to ‘very strong’ and gives an indication of how long it would take a hacker to crack, letting users know which of their passwords need to be changed to keep them safe.
The launch follows a series of high profile password hacking incidents of Yahoo, LinkedIn and Match.com.
Mike Newman, CEO of online security firm ‘my1login’ says: “There’s been a noticeable acceleration in the number of high-profile password hacking incidents we’ve seen already this year, with major online players such as LinkedIn and eHarmony among the victims and millions of user accounts compromised. The truth is that these companies can spend millions of pounds beefing up their security, but if individual users persist in using the same old simple passwords, hackers will continue to crack them”.
Recent studies to identify common passwords have produced an almost identical list as a study carried out in 1990 demonstrating that user behaviour has barely changed across two decades. Meanwhile, across the same period, the technology available to hackers has progressed enormously.
The strength meter rates passwords from ‘very weak’ through to ‘very strong’ and gives an indication of how long it would take a hacker to crack, letting users know which of their passwords need to be changed to keep them safe.
The password strength meter applies similar approaches that hackers might use to crack a password, using a variety of tactics, from dictionary attacks to concerted brute force attacks. The ‘time to crack’ is an estimation of how long it would take a hacker to determine your password based on content, length and complexity.
Where ‘very weak’, ‘weak’ and ‘medium’ strength passwords are identified, my1login’s free password generator can then be used to create new unique, super-strong replacements, such as ‘8_ZD5VQz1)m6n7rM_#L
