Question

Analyze the following computer password in terms of how secure it might be. Describe the criteria you use in determining its strengths and weaknesses.

born2ski4evr!

Answer 1

Short answer: This password is better than a short single word but still fairly weak against an attacker who uses wordlists + “leet” (2/4) rules or targeted guessing. It has some good elements (length 13, includes a digit and a symbol) but its structure is highly guessable because it’s composed of real words and common substitutions.

What I looked at (criteria)
- Length: 13 characters (helpful).
- Character variety: lowercase letters + digits + one punctuation mark (some variety, but no mixed-case).
- Use of dictionary words / phrases: looks like “born to ski forever” compressed to “born2ski4evr” — recognizably phrase-like.
- Predictable substitutions: 2 for “to”, 4 for “for”, “evr” as a common shorthand for “ever”.
- Entropy estimate: real entropy depends on attacker model; phrase + common leet rules reduces effective entropy a lot versus a random string.
- Attack scenarios: offline (fast, GPU-accelerated) vs online (rate-limited), and the effect of hashing (fast hash vs slow KDF such as bcrypt/scrypt/Argon2).
- Reuse and exposure risk: if reused or sent to a breached site, compromise risk increases.

Strengths
- Longer than many common passwords (13 characters).
- Includes digits and a symbol (“!”), which helps against naive minimum-rules checks.
- Easy to remember.

Weaknesses
- Built from common words and a recognizable phrase — susceptible to wordlist and phrase-based attacks.
- Uses very common leet substitutions (2 → to, 4 → for) and a common shorthand (“evr”), which automated cracking tools try early.
- All lowercase letters for the alphabetic part (no mixed-case increases predictability).
- If the site stores passwords with a fast hash (MD5/SHA1/SHA256) and an attacker can get the hash, cracking will be much faster.

Estimated crackability (illustrative, depends on assumptions)
- If an attacker uses targeted wordlist/rules (common words + leet substitutions), this could be guessed very quickly (seconds–minutes) in an offline attack because it’s a predictable phrase.
- If treated as having ~40–50 bits of entropy:
- At 10^9 guesses/second (GPU cluster), 40 bits ≈ 18 minutes, 45 bits ≈ 10 hours, 50 bits ≈ 13 days.
- If the password hash is protected by a slow KDF (e.g., bcrypt/Argon2) limiting verification to ~100 tries/second, those times inflate to hundreds/thousands of years — i.e., proper hashing greatly helps.
- Online attacks (login attempts) are typically rate-limited, so compromise would be far slower unless credentials are reused and exposed elsewhere.

Bottom line
- It’s marginal: better than “password123” but still vulnerable to modern cracking if an attacker has the hash or if they try smart rule-based guesses. The predictable phrase and common leet makes it weaker than an equally long random string or an unpredictable passphrase of several unrelated words.

Recommendations
- Use a longer passphrase of several unrelated words (e.g., four random words) or a randomly generated password from a password manager.
- Avoid predictable substitutions (2 for “to”, 4 for “for”), common abbreviations, or real phrases tied to you.
- Use mixed case and place symbols/digits in unpredictable positions if you must compose your own.
- Always use unique passwords per site and enable two-factor authentication (2FA).
- Ensure sites store passwords with a slow, modern KDF (bcrypt/scrypt/Argon2) — this is a server-side protection but greatly reduces the risk from offline cracking.

If you want, I can:
- Suggest alternatives with the same memorability but higher strength, or
- Estimate more precise cracking times under particular scenarios (hash type, attacker speed).