A strong password – what does it mean?

A password is the fundamental way to secure our data, accounts, and devices. In an era of widespread access to various tools – both password recovery and password cracking – many people still use passwords that are easy to guess, both by humans and machines. This can lead to identity theft, data leaks, account takeovers, or malware infections.

Creating strong, unique passwords and managing them properly are fundamental principles of digital hygiene – both in personal and professional life. We encourage you to read our leaflet, which includes a list of the most popular passwords in Poland from leaks, as well as information on the average password length in relation to the time required to crack them, depending on their complexity.

The most common “classics” from leaked databases include: 123456, qwerty, 1234, misiek, and polska. Such passwords can be cracked in less than a second, even without advanced tools. The time required to crack a password depends primarily on its length, complexity, and uniqueness. For example, a five-character password composed solely of numbers or letters can be cracked almost instantly. As the table in the leaflet shows, the time required to crack a password increases significantly with its length and the use of various characters.

A strong password should be of sufficient length, contain a variety of character types, and not rely on dictionary words. Even better, a random string of characters generated, for example, using a password manager. Passwords should not be written down on pieces of paper or shared with others. They should also not be duplicated across different services, as this can lead to a so-called credential stuffing attack, in which cybercriminals use data from a single breach to take over accounts elsewhere. Avoid using names, dates of birth, city names, places of employment, or simple phrases. It’s also a good idea to always enable at least two-factor authentication (2FA), which provides an additional layer of security.

Unfortunately, even the strongest password can be compromised online if a service provider’s server is hacked. Therefore, it’s important to regularly check for known breaches. This can be done using secure and reliable services such as https://haveibeenpwned.com. If your password is in such a database, you should change it. This also applies to all accounts where it was used.

A strong password is the foundation of online security. It should be difficult to crack, yet easy to manage securely. Changing passwords to different ones, making them unique for each account, using password managers, and a proactive approach to digital security significantly increase our resilience to cyberthreats.