PassGAN AI can crack your passwords in seconds

As Artificial Intelligence becomes increasingly prevalent in various industries, it is also infiltrating our daily lives, including website chatbots and decisions about map data. However, the use of AI has recently raised security concerns, particularly in password protection.

PassGAN AI, a password-generative adversarial network, is a two-part system that has a "Generative Network" that generates passwords likely to be used by the average person and a "Discriminator Network" that compares the generated password against real passwords from the leaked data. The discriminator network trains the generative network to create better and more accurate passwords.

How quickly can PassGAN AI crack passwords?

According to Home Security Heroes (HSH), passwords with four, five, and six characters made up of a combination of letters (upper and lower case), numbers, and symbols can be guessed almost instantly by PassGAN AI. Even a seven-digit password with upper and lowercase letters and numbers (but no symbols) could be cracked in under a minute. The most structurally complex eight- and nine-digit passwords can be cracked in seven hours and two weeks, respectively. Therefore, if your passwords fall under these undesirable criteria, it's time to upgrade.

HSH ran the PassGAN AI through 15.600.000 common passwords and came up with the following result.

PassGAN AI can crack up to 8 characters long passwords within hours - Image courtesy of Home Security Heroes

Should you be worried about AI cracking your passwords?

Although this may sound alarming, similar tools have been around for a while, and passwords and logins remain secure. Password crackers, even AI ones that train themselves, are only as good as the dataset at their disposal. While it's not clear whether AI like PassGAN can pick out your password, it's essential to use strong passwords.

Can you protect your password from PassGAN AI?

You can test your password's strength on HSH, although caution is advised when handing over any real passwords. It is essential to use strong passwords to safeguard against AI password cracking. The longer and more complex the password, the more challenging it is to crack.

While AI password-cracking tools like PassGAN may be able to crack short passwords in seconds, the security of your passwords remains intact as long as you use strong and complex passwords. As AI models continue to evolve, it is important to keep your passwords updated and secure to stay ahead of potential threats.

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