Passwords are cracked by guessing candidates, but not every account takeover involves cracking: phishing and keyloggers can steal a password outright, while credential stuffing reuses a password leaked elsewhere. The right defenses depend on the route: use a unique, long password for each service, store them in a password manager, enable multifactor authentication (MFA), and choose phishing-resistant sign-in when it is supported.
How passwords are cracked
Attackers can test guesses against a live sign-in page or against stolen password hashes. Those are different situations: a service can throttle live login attempts, but stolen hashes can be tested offline without the service’s ordinary login limits. Other attacks capture or reuse credentials rather than infer them from guesses.
Online guessing
In an online attack, an attacker submits candidate passwords to a service’s login system. Rate limiting and throttling can restrict attempts. A strong password helps, but the service’s defenses also matter. NIST explains password strength and guessing risks in its password guidance.
Offline cracking of stolen hashes
When attackers obtain a password database containing hashes, they can test candidate passwords against those hashes outside the login system. There is no ordinary login-attempt throttle on that work; the password-storage method and its settings determine how costly each guess is. That is why password security depends both on what users choose and on how services store password verifiers.
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Credential reuse and stuffing
If a password exposed at one service is also used elsewhere, attackers can try that credential at other services. This is often called credential stuffing: the attacker is testing known credentials, not necessarily cracking a new password. A different password for every account prevents one service’s breach from automatically exposing the same password at another.
Phishing and keylogging
Phishing tricks someone into entering a password on an impostor sign-in page. Keylogging malware records what the user types. Neither attack is defeated by making the password longer or more complex; those protections address guessing, not capture. NIST describes these threats alongside authentication considerations in its threat guidance.
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How to make your passwords safer
Use a unique password for every service
Do not reuse a password across email, shopping, social, banking, or work accounts. A password manager can generate and maintain distinct credentials so you do not need to memorize each one. NIST discusses password managers and distinct passwords in its customer experience guidance.
Choose length when you must create a password
If a service requires you to make a password yourself, use a long password or passphrase. NIST’s consumer-facing guidance advises at least 15 characters when users must create a password. Length makes guessing harder, but it does not prevent a fake sign-in page or malicious software from capturing the password.
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Turn on MFA and prefer phishing-resistant sign-in
MFA requires another proof of identity in addition to the password, so a stolen password alone may not be enough to sign in. Where a service supports passkeys or another phishing-resistant authenticator, prefer that option: it is designed to resist impostor-site credential capture better than a password entered into a page. NIST’s AAL2 requirements say a verifier must offer at least one phishing-resistant option; that is a requirement for systems in the standard’s scope, not a guarantee that every consumer service offers one.
| Sign-in choice | Phishing resistance | Compatibility and recovery | Practical use |
|---|---|---|---|
| Password alone | Low: a user can be tricked into entering it on a fake site. | Broadly supported; recovery depends on the service. | Use a unique, long password, but do not treat it as protection against phishing or malware capture. |
| Password plus another factor | Varies by factor; some methods can still be phished. | The service must support the factor, and the user needs a recovery route if it is lost. | Enable MFA when available and choose the strongest method the service supports. |
| Passkey or other phishing-resistant authenticator | Designed to resist phishing by binding authentication to the legitimate service. | Support and recovery options vary by service and authenticator. | Prefer it where supported; check the service’s setup and account-recovery options. |
A physical FIDO2 security key is one possible authenticator, but it only helps for accounts that support that key standard. Confirm compatibility and recovery options for each service before relying on one.
Protect the password manager itself
Use MFA on the manager account when it is available, and secure its recovery methods. A manager reduces password reuse, but access to the manager can affect many accounts, so its sign-in and recovery deserve particular care.
If a password may have been exposed
- Change it on the affected service, using a password that has not been used anywhere else.
- Change it anywhere you reused it; do not wait to see whether an attacker tries those accounts.
- Enable MFA on those accounts, preferably with a phishing-resistant method if supported.
What services should do to protect stored passwords
Users cannot inspect a service’s password database, but the service’s storage design matters if that database is stolen. NIST SP 800-63B-4, published July 31, 2025 and superseding its 2020 edition, states: “Verifiers SHALL store passwords in a form that is resistant to offline attacks.” The standard says verifiers should salt and hash passwords with a suitable password-hashing scheme, use a salt of at least 32 bits, and set the cost factor as high as practical without harming verifier performance. A salt and computational cost make each candidate guess more expensive; services should not store plaintext passwords. See the NIST SP 800-63B-4 standard.
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OWASP’s Password Storage Cheat Sheet provides implementation guidance and discusses Argon2id, bcrypt, and PBKDF2. Algorithm choices and recommended parameters are technical implementation details that can change; this article does not prescribe configuration values. NIST’s requirements are written for digital identity and authentication systems, including government information systems, while the user practices above are useful more broadly.
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