The least we can say is that PassGAN, an AI specialized in account hacking, is worrying. It can even guess the simplest passwords in less than a minute…
Artificial intelligence, largely democratized by OpenAI’s ChatGPT, is in the spotlight. And if this one can have many beneficial effects for our society, it is not not safe. Malicious users did not wait long to use it. This is used in particular to distribute malware on YouTube. Moreover, it would threaten hundreds of millions of jobs. But this is a much more serious danger…
PassGAN is therefore an AI designed to crack passwords in a record time. Worse, it would even allow access to online bank accounts. To achieve his ends, the AI operates in a completely classic way. Indeed, the latter learns as it goes, using a large database. The most common passwords are then guessed in a few minutes…
PassGAN: simple measures to protect your accounts
The simplest login credentials would be hacked in just one minute. On the other hand, this execution time lengthens as the password becomes more complicated. But if it remains relatively simple, PassGAN is able, in 80% of cases, to find it in less than a month. And while it may seem rather long, this method is much faster than the strategies adopted by hackers before the advent of AI.
In order to combat this menace, it suffices to adopt some pretty simple security measures. First of all, avoid using the same password everywhere. This rule may seem elementary, but it is still very important. Then, studies have shown that PassGAN has a very hard time getting out of it if the password exceeds 18 charactersmixing letters and numbers.
Finally, do not hesitate to mix upper and lower case letters. This is essentially the method adopted by automatic password generation services, such as Apple’s Safari browser, or the Dashlane login management extension. The latter is moreover available on both PC and Mac.
Source : iphonesoft
