For years, we’ve been told that “8 characters with a symbol” was safe.
This is no longer true.
According to the 2025 Hive Systems Password Table, a hacker using modern hardware can now crack an 8-character lowercase password in just 57 minutes.
Even with numbers and symbols added, short passwords are often broken in days.
The most effective defense today is length.
A password over 14 characters takes far longer to crack than a short one, regardless of how many special characters you add.
So what can you do?
The best option is to use passphrase passwords! You can easily make these for free with tools like BitWarden’s Passphrase Generator. Here’s an example of a great password that hackers would struggle to crack.
We use BitWarden passphrases for all our internal passwords as well as our client logins, so we know they work! BitWarden is a great password manager – not only does it create these long and hard to remember passwords, but it also stores them for you. Personal plans start free, and business plans are very affordable and scalable for small teams to big corporations.
If you need advice or help setting up cyber security for your business, big or small, we’re here to help!
