This simple calculator will tell you if your password is strong or if you should change it immediately.
Using strong passwords that are difficult to crack is essential to protect any online account. However, it is very common to make the mistake of using any key, without stopping to think a lot about security. In this article, we will show you a very simple calculator where, by entering certain data, you can check if your password is safe or, on the contrary, you should change it as soon as possible.
The goal is nothing more than to discover the possible weak passwords you use on platforms of all kinds, such as social networks, email, bank accounts... It is the main security barrier to keep hackers away.
What this calculator does is use a mathematical formula to find out if a password is reliable or not. It is known as the password entropy. It analyzes the length of the key, as well as the type of characters you are using. The mathematical formula is E=log2(RL). R is the type and number of characters (letters, uppercase, lowercase, numbers...) and L is the length of that key. Log2 is a mathematical formula that will be responsible for calculating the bits.
The result, those Bits we mentioned, is what will determine whether the password is reliable or not. A good goal is to have a score of more than 100. If you see it lower, it could mean that this password is weak and can be predicted by hackers, so your account is not really unprotected.
We will run several tests, with several examples, so you can see exactly what we mean. Let's take, as a first example, an 8-digit password. In this case, L is 8 and R should be defined as just numbers (0-9), which assigns a value of 10. When we calculate the entropy, it gives us a result of 26.58 bits. Quite far from the target of 100, making it a very weak password.
If we give an example of a stronger password, we can use a 12-character (L) that contains both uppercase and lowercase letters, and assign it a value of 52. In this case, the result that comes out is 68.41 bits. Much better than the previous example, but still far from the goal of getting close to 100.
On the other hand, if we use a much stronger password example, made up of 16 characters and using letters (upper and lower case letters, numbers and other symbols), it would give us a result of 105.12 bits. This is already in line with what a good password should be.
As you can see, the ideal solution is for the password to be very long, in addition to containing letters (upper and lower case letters, numbers and other special characters). Avoid using a very short or long password that contains only letters and numbers. The longer, and the more variety, the better.
Of course, you should never use words or numbers that are easy to guess. Don’t use your first or last name, your date of birth, or your mobile phone number. And it’s important that it’s a completely random key, which will make it very difficult for any hacker who wants to access it to figure it out.
- Link Password Entropy Calculator