We will also give you some tips to generate fully complex keys, which are practically impossible to find out. Just by following some good practices, you will see that your security will increase significantly and you will avoid problems in your daily life. You use passwords for everything, every day, so it’s best not to make mistakes.
Check your passwords
You don’t need to be a cybersecurity expert to be aware that having a password like “123456” is not the same as having a password that is much more complex and long. However, although the vast majority know that they should use stronger access keysthe truth is that the most basic are still the most used.
Many computer security experts talk about a formula, which is a bit complex for most home users, but is useful. It is a formula in which something called entropy is calculated. The formula is E=log2(RL). Yes, it is complex and probably doesn’t make sense to you. What it does is calculate the range of characters and the length of the password to, through a mathematical formula, calculate the number of bits and see if it is secure or not.
Don’t worry, there is a website that acts as calculator and where you can check any password you have and see if it is secure or not. The site is Omni Calculator. It is very easy to use. You simply have to enter how many characters your password has depending on each type. For example, you may have letters (upper and lower case), numbers, and other special characters.
Let’s do many tests, with different passwords. We are going to try the typical “123456”, we are going to make another slightly more complex one where we will put, for example, “1234asdf567”, we will add more complexity with “Tasd789Nk2458” and, finally, an even much more secure one like “5H-9s3l%2tN /29=am”.
For the first, as expected, it has given us a low entropy. Specifically, 19.93 bits and adds a message indicating that we are using an insecure key and that we must change it. The next one, somewhat more complex, gives a result of 56.87 bits. The third password, now with some capital letters, goes up to 77.4 bits.
Finally, we have put a password that perfectly complies with what a strong key should have: upper and lower case letters, numbers and a series of special characters. In addition, it is important that it has a good length and is completely random. In this chaos, it gives us a result of 104.87 bits and tells us that it is very safe.
As you see, simply with this calculator and the formula that we have shown, you can check the strength of any password. It is essential that you do not use them in other places, that they are always random, do not contain names or digits that relate to you, have a good length and always a mixture of all types of letters, numbers and symbols. With this, you can prevent an attacker from cracking your password.
