The Ultimate Guide to Password Strength Testing Tools in 2024
Are you worried about the safety of your online identity? Check out this definitive guide to password strength testing tools.
In this age of cybercrime and data breaches, password-strength testing tools have become the standard for ensuring that your online credentials are strong, secure, and strong enough to withstand hacking attempts.
But just like any other online tool, there are good and bad password strength checkers. And even for the good ones, people often misuse them.
So, if you are keen on your online privacy and security, this guide on password strength testing will help you develop the best passwords and test them using the best tools.
Why Use Password Strength Testing Tools?
Passwords are the primary means of protecting our identity and sensitive information on the web. They serve as our first line of defense against illegal intrusions and malicious programs.
So, the more anonymous and complex they are, the better secure we are from cyberattacks. Passwords also play a critical role in securing our devices when they are unattended.
Therefore, it is essential to maintain stronger passwords for all your devices and online accounts. However, sometimes, you may not know how strong your password is, especially if you're fond of creating easy-to-remember passwords.
Thankfully, you can use password strength testing tools to gauge the construction of your password and how long it will take for hackers to penetrate it.
The beauty of most of these tools is that they are secure and free to use.
Best Practices for Password Strength Testing Tools
Before selecting a password strength checker, it is vital to understand crucial aspects of access management.
After all, what would be the need for a good password strength testing tool if you had no clue how to develop a strong password?
Essentially, top password strength checkers rate your credentials based on two main factors: complexity and length.
Usually, the longer your password is, the longer it would take a brute-force attack to crack it. To put it into perspective, a password of eight characters is more secure than an eight-character-long password.
So, aim for at least ten characters when composing your password. Regarding the complexity, using a mix of random numbers, letters, and symbols is important.
Most people know you need at least a lower and uppercase letter, a punctuation, and a digit. However, top identity and access management experts recommend that these characters be random.
Hackers can easily penetrate a password that uses sequence characters. Besides this, using sentences or phrases is usually easier to remember and more robust for cybersecurity.
Besides the above, other password strength best practices include the following:
Never Allow the Sharing of Passwords
Employees tend to share passwords with their colleagues to facilitate business processes. While the reason could be legitimate, it leads to more insider threats and poor control over user identity and access management.
Considering this, you should discourage sharing passwords at all costs. On top of this, you should discourage your employees from putting down their passwords on paper.
This can lead to password leakages in the long term.
Don’t Allow Repeated Passwords
Often, employees have so many passwords to remember, which may overwhelm them. But that does not mean that they should repeat their passwords.
Even more important is that they must not cross-use their credentials. Usually, the more frequently a password appears online, the more likely it will end up in hackers’ radars via other security breaches.
Don’t Use Personal Information when Creating Passwords
People often use their favorite pets or birthdays as their passwords because they are easier to remember. This is a dangerous trend that is responsible for many password leakages.
Hackers can perform social media research and other tricks to search for personal information about their targets with minimal effort.
With such information, they can carry out phishing attacks and social engineering. Besides this, they can also use the information to guess your passwords, which is even more dangerous.
Secure Privileged Access Accounts
The above security measures apply to both regular and privileged user accounts. But it would help if you put more emphasis on privileged access credentials since hackers tend to target these accounts because of the network leverage they wield.
Utilize Next-Gen Identity and Access Management Programs
Besides using the best password strength testing tools, you should also use modern identity security systems, which can offer better password security that withstands the current digital landscape.
Sometimes, legacy identity and access management solutions need to catch up regarding capabilities and threat intelligence.
Password Expiration Is not Effective
It is now that security experts have recognized that password expiration policies don’t work. They only cause more confusion when they cloud your identity.
That is why it is even better to compose solid passwords and secure them than constantly expire them.
NordPass is one of the best free password strength checking tools from the company responsible for NordVPN.
Besides allowing you to create new passwords, this tool also lets you check the strength of your existing passwords.
This functionality is available through the NordPass website, meaning that you can check your password strength without downloading an app.
The moment it receives a password, NordPass evaluates it by checking some key elements, such as the length of the password and the presence and distribution of numbers, symbols, and upper and lowercase letters.
On top of this, it estimates the time it would take a brute-force attack to penetrate your password. And more importantly, it lets you know if your password has been compromised in past data breaches.
If you are looking for a straightforward tool for analyzing your password, then the FreeWebTools Password Strength Testing tool will offer much value.
What it does is check the strength of an entered password. According to this tool, your password should be at least ten characters long, have a special character, and have at least one number.
Another thing to note about this tool is that it shows the strength of your password using colors, with red meaning a weak password, orange indicating a moderate password, and green indicating a strong password.
Kaspersky is famous for developing secure and trustworthy online security products. One of them is the password strength testing tool, which is available on its website.
The good thing is that you can use the tool without signing up or downloading an app. Generally, this tool is simplistic in its interface and functionality.
It is more of a meter that shows you the strength of your passwords in different colors. Some people may not like it because it doesn’t provide much detail, but on the upside, you can trust it as a secure tool to check your password.
Apart from this, it does search for your password in the database of previous data breaches.
The University of Illinois at Chicago offers a robust tool for testing passwords for potential weaknesses.
Unlike other password strength checking tools, the UIC password strength checker uses a complex algorithm to analyze your passwords and give real-time feedback.
Specifically, it highlights consecutive letters, repeated characters, and sequential symbols, among other factors.
Another uniqueness of this tool is that it highlights the complexity of your password by adding and deducting points based on various factors, such as the length of your password and the presence of symbols, numbers, and letters.
The final score will range from 0 to 100.
Other Things You Should Take into Account When Using Password Strength Checkers
Replacing Characters Is Not Advisable
There was a time when replacing a letter like E with the number 3 was the thing in password security. Unfortunately, that is no longer advisable.
Today’s hacking tools are sophisticated enough to recognize these character substitutions. Instead, you should consider random numbers and several words spread throughout.
Beware of Dictionary Attacks
A dictionary tool is one of the most popular tools hackers use to penetrate your passwords. With a comprehensive dictionary tool, cybercriminals can recognize and penetrate concrete words.
That is why one-word passwords are no longer strong.
It's Time to Consider Multifactor Authentication
Even if you employ the best password strength testing tool, your system is still vulnerable if you are using single-factor authentication. Cybercriminals can hack any password.
Moreover, employees sometimes need to be more trustworthy when it comes to following identity and access management recommended standards.
And even if you provide them with these password stretch testing tools, they may still be overwhelmed by many passwords, thus resorting to simplifying or repeating passwords.
For this reason, your organization needs to embrace multifactor authentication. Incorporating several factors will complement strong passwords and confound fraudsters more effectively.
Closing Remarks
Most people know the general best practices for passwords, such as the presence of numbers, symbols, upper and lowercase letters, and password length.
However, it can be challenging to recognize all the potential weaknesses in your passwords. This is where password strength testing tools will help you avoid password vulnerabilities.
These tools offer plenty of insights into your passwords and help you keep your information safe from fraudsters.
But the most critical thing is incorporating strong passwords into your overall cybersecurity framework.
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