In this digital age where everything happens online, protecting our online accounts is an important issue. Our sensitive data can be insecure if we do not pay attention to protecting it. We need to protect our online accounts and subscriptions with stronger Passwords that are not easily guessed by humans and the new artificial intelligence tools.

Yes, you read that right. AI tools are now able to guess our passwords and can crack our accounts if they fall into unsafe hands like hackers. In this article, we’ll explain how AI can guess our passwords and how we can use them to protect our accounts from the AI revolution.

Can AI Guess Passwords? How to Protect Our Accounts From It?

Yes, AI can guess passwords if given time. It can crack many passwords within seconds and takes some time to guess difficult passwords. Artificial intelligence tools use the following methods to guess or crack passwords. The below methods are something hackers have been using for a long time to crack passwords, but AI has made it that much easier to accomplish the same.

1. Brute Force Attacks: In this method, AI-powered tools can generate and try different combinations of characters to get the real password. With the proper implementation of machine learning techniques, the process of generating and trying passwords can be accelerated, and the algorithms can guess the passwords efficiently.
2. Dictionary Attacks: AI tools can use extensive dictionaries and word lists of common words, phrases, and leaked passwords to find a pattern and guess the passwords. The tools analyze the pattern and guess the passwords with greater chances of success.
3. Pattern Recognition: In the past and even now, there have been a large number of password and data leaks. With each leak, millions of users lose their passwords to the world. The data is available on the dark web, and AI tools can read it. They can analyze and recognize a pattern to correctly guess the new passwords.
4. Credential Stuffing: It is common for people to use the same passwords for multiple accounts without changing a letter or symbol in the password. This way, the passwords are easy to remember. If one of your accounts was part of a data leak, AI tools can use the password for your other accounts and crack them because you reused the same passwords.
5. Data Mining: We all have a lot of data about us online. It may have been uploaded by us at different times, be it personal or professional. AI tools can crawl the internet to find details about you, collect personal information, and analyze it. The information can be used to guess passwords if you have used your date of birth, names of family members, etc., as passwords.

These are the different methods AI tools use to guess your passwords. There are AI models that apply all the methods at once and crack your passwords within seconds. With each passing day, AI models are becoming even stronger. To protect your passwords from AI tools and secure your accounts, you can use the following methods.

Use Strong and Unique Passwords

The first thing you can do to protect your passwords from AI is to create very unique and strong passwords. Passwords should be complex enough to contain a mixture of uppercase letters, lowercase letters, numbers, and special characters. The mixture of these characters should not have any pattern that the AI could recognize.

To create strong and unique passwords, you should exclude the possibility of using common words, predictable character patterns, and personal data. You need to create different strong and unique passwords for different online accounts.

Use Password Managers

There are many password managers available, both free and paid. Password managers allow you to generate unique and secure passwords and save them to use when needed without having to remember the passwords.

Remember that you need to trust the services of the password manager you choose fully. Do not opt for unknown services that offer attractive features that are too good to be true. Use password managers that have a good record of protecting passwords.

Enable Two-Factor Authentication (2FA)

Each of our online accounts is equipped with a two-factor authentication layer to protect the account and its data. Two-factor authentication provides your account with an additional layer of protection in addition to the password you set.

You can set a temporary code sent to your mobile device, a biometric scan, a hardware token, or a code generated by 2FA apps like Authy, Google Authenticator, etc., as two-factor authentication methods. This method makes it impossible to access your online accounts even if they have your password.

Monitor Data Breaches

Data breaches happen regularly because we have many online accounts with different service providers. A small error on their side makes it easy for hackers to steal data and offer it for sale on the dark web.

To protect your accounts after data breaches, you need to monitor the data breaches regularly and check if your email address or username is affected by the data breaches. You can use free tools like Have I been pwned to find out if your data is included in the security breach.

If you can find your data in the data breach, you need to change the passwords of the affected accounts and enable 2FA to increase security.

Update Apps Regularly

Regardless of the devices you use, such as a laptop, computer, or smartphone, you need to update the apps installed on them regularly. Each update fixes the bugs of the previous update and makes the apps more secure.

If you do not update the apps regularly, there is a risk that your data could be compromised due to bugs or security risks in the app.

Do Not Click on Links You Do Not Trust

We get many emails and messages on a daily basis. We know some of them and do not know most of them. When you open those emails or message to read the content, do not click on the links provided in them if that is not related to you.

Hackers may send phishing links that collect your personal information and data when you click on them. These phishing attacks happen regularly, and we know people losing money on a daily basis.

Do not click on any links unless you are sure of them. Click on them only after verifying the sender’s address and checking all the details properly.

Check Your Account Activity

The online accounts that we have features to verify the activities that we do on them. This includes the time we logged in and logged out, the devices we used to log in, etc.

Regular monitoring of this data allows us to stay up to date on account usage, and we can protect our account if we detect any undetected activity on the account.

Enable Google Passkeys

Google has recently rolled out the Passkeys feature to its users. It protects Google and supported accounts by using your fingerprint, or facial recognition, or PIN tied to the device you are using the account on. Passkeys are to be enabled manually in the account settings which are specific to the device you activate it on. That means, whatever device you log in to your Google account and enable passkey, you can log in on that device without the use of any password.

You can enable multiple passkeys for a single account and secure it by making it passwordless.

Safeguard Your Accounts and Their Passwords Online

With a lot happening in the world of AI, you need to be wary of being used by hackers and others who want to use your data. Creating a strong and unique password for every account we create online and enabling another layer of protection in the form of two-factor authentication is a great way to protect your accounts and their passwords online.

You can also use the other methods mentioned above to ensure that your accounts never fall victim to hackers or data breaches.

FAQs on Using AI to Guess Passwords