How easily can hackers guess your passwords?

This question has been a popular question among many people. But, the answer is simple, most hackers don’t have to guess your password in order to gain access to your accounts, they could get it directly from various means.

Data breaches occur when there is unpatched software where companies who fail to apply security updates and patches to software and systems can leave vulnerabilities that attackers can exploit to gain access to sensitive data.

Third parties outside an organization could leak passwords, like smaller vendors who provide services to these larger companies that store lots of users’ data.

When there is a lot of weak software, the applications can allow attackers to exploit weaknesses and gain unauthorized access to data stored within the application or connected databases.

All these things can be outside of your control, but if you make sure the company you trust has a verified Norton badge, and there is a lock symbol near the domain, these things can mean that the website is probably secure and has a low likelihood of having a security breach.

Password guessing could be pretty uncommon, but it could happen, but most of the time only if a user uses their names, birthdate, or any common words in their passwords could this be possible. So, as long as that doesn’t happen, it is pretty uncommon for a hacker to guess a strong password.

There are many websites that check the strength of your passwords and how fast a hacker could guess it, but then again make sure that company is verified, to make sure your passwords don’t get breached.

Sometimes you could involuntarily give your own password. This is through phishing scams, where an email or phone caller acts like they are a trusted source, like your local doctor's office and just need your personal information to put into their database. But, this can cause your data to be stolen by a hacker behind the call or email address. So, it is usually a good practice to never, share your passwords online through any type of social media or phone platform. All these tips that I shared above are crucial to make sure your passwords or personal information doesn’t get stolen on the internet.