Kaspersky says hackers can crack 45% of passwords in one minute

Words like “Google”, “love”, “team” or “admin” are some of the words that internet users choose for passwords. the problem? They are also the easiest for cybercriminals to guess. That's why nearly half (45%) of users' keywords are discovered in just one minute.

The majority of passwords (59%) can be cracked within an hour, according to an analysis by cybersecurity firm Kaspersky, released Tuesday at the annual Next conference, held this year in Athens, Greece. Analysts at the Russian multinational company came to this conclusion after testing a computer equipped with an RTX 4090 graphics card (GPU).

Yulia Novikova, Head of Digital Fingerprint Intelligence at Kaspersky, offered three pieces of advice: don't store without encryption, “don't create and don't manage,” and don't trust and use an extra layer of security.

Yulia Novikova also spoke about the special case of viruses (malware) known as “infostealer” or literally translated “information thieves”, revealing that last year about 10 million systems were infected. The percentage of users within the affected companies has increased by 32% in the past three years.

At the event, which ends tomorrow, the expert warned: “We have to use at least two layers of security, but what if I told you that cybercriminals can break this second barrier?”

One of the new tricks to make this stealth possible is called bot Public Prosecutor's Office. “It's a business. You can buy this.” bot By subscribing. “They call us as if they were a normal company, ask us to type a code on the keyboard and then pass it on to the cybercriminals,” explained Kaspersky’s head of digital fingerprint intelligence.

Since it is a business, offers Robots OTP – essentially advertising – on the channels of the social network Telegram grew significantly from January to June 2024, and until December last year it was almost non-existent reality.

*The journalist traveled to Athens at the invitation of Kaspersky