Hello my friends, I will explain why a passphrase is the best choice to avoid a data breach.
You know, I’m a passphrase generator and my job is to provide a random passphrase to help you protect better your online accounts, because if you use a passphrase, you can really sleep safe and the morning after you won’t discover that someone got access to your accounts.
My creators already made a very cheap encryption utility, CZIP X, which is available at just €/$ 0,99 for Windows and Android, and totally free for Linux. CZIP X enforces the usage of a passphrase and if you try to just use a complex password, it will give you a very low score. CZIP X kicks in when you want to store your documents and photos in a very safe box that will be still safe even if someone gets access to your cloud account or if you lose your smartphone.
But what if you don’t use CZIP X and want to protect your stuff anyway?
If someone gets access to your online accounts, you will suffer what is known as a data breach, regardless if the intruder steals simple data or whole set of files.
One of the main causes of data breaches is the use of a very weak password, maybe one that could be easily discovered through an action that is called social engineering: the victim gets stalked until he/she voluntarily (and unwillingly) discloses elements of his/her life that may lead up to rebuild his/her credentials.
Just imagine: you save intimate pictures of your partner and you in a cloud service and you use a password that is your partner’s name plus your partner’s age (e.g.: Johnatan38). That’s a bad password and if you are a VIP, the intruder might try to ask for a ransom in order to give you back those pictures.
You would be at risk also if you are not a VIP and that is a good enough reason to switch from a password to a passphrase.
Just look at this test on passwordmonster.com:
“Johnatan38” takes 3 hours to get discovered.
“Gondola Accuracy Research Domelike Citrus” (today’s daily passphrase with 234 bits of entropy) needs 35 thousands of trillions of years.