Is Your Password Strong Enough? Why strength alone isn't enough
A strong password means nothing if it's already been leaked. Learn why checking both strength and breach status is essential for protecting your accounts.
Is Your Password Strong Enough? Why strength alone isn't enough
2025-12-15
You've heard the advice a thousand times: use a strong password. Make it long. Add numbers and symbols. Don't use your birthday or your dog's name.
So you create something like Tr0ub4dor&3 and feel secure.
Here's the problem: that password has already appeared in data breaches. Thousands of times. It doesn't matter how "strong" it looks. If attackers already have it in their databases, they'll try it against your accounts within seconds of a breach.
Password security isn't just about strength. It's about whether your password has already been compromised.
The scale of the problem
The numbers are staggering:
3.8 billion credentials were leaked in just the first half of 2025. That's billion, with a B.
81% of company data breaches involve weak or stolen passwords. Not sophisticated zero-day exploits. Not nation-state hackers. Passwords.
46% of people had at least one password stolen in 2024. Nearly half of everyone online.
And here's what makes it worse: 60% of people reuse passwords across multiple accounts. When one account gets breached, attackers don't just get access to that account. They get a key that might unlock your email, your bank, your work systems.
Why "strong" passwords fail
Traditional password strength meters look at things like length, character variety, and common patterns. A password that scores "strong" on these metrics might still be completely compromised.
The breach database problem
Attackers don't guess passwords one character at a time like in the movies. They use massive databases of leaked credentials from previous breaches. These databases contain billions of real passwords that real people actually used.
When a new breach happens, attackers run automated tools that try every leaked password against every account. This is called credential stuffing. It's fast, it's cheap, and it works frighteningly well.
If your "strong" password appeared in a breach five years ago, it's in those databases. Attackers will try it.
The password reuse cascade
Let's say you used the same password for a gaming forum in 2019 and your business email today. That forum got breached. You never knew about it. Your password has been sitting in criminal databases for years.
Now an attacker tries that password against your email. It works. From your email, they reset passwords on your other accounts. They find invoices and impersonate your vendors. They access your cloud storage.
All because of a gaming forum you forgot you signed up for.
Common passwords are obvious targets
Despite years of warnings, "123456" remains the most commonly used password globally, appearing over 4.5 million times in breach data. "password" is used by over 700,000 people. These are cracked instantly.
But it's not just the obvious ones. Attackers know that people substitute numbers for letters (p4ssw0rd), add years (password2024), and use keyboard patterns (qwerty123). These patterns are well-documented and automatically tested.
What actually makes a password secure
A truly secure password needs to meet two criteria:
1. It must be resistant to cracking.
This means:
- At least 14 characters (longer is better)
- Random or unpredictable combinations
- Not based on dictionary words, names, or dates
- Not following common substitution patterns
2. It must never have appeared in a breach.
This is the part most people miss. You can create the most complex password imaginable, but if it's been leaked, it's compromised.
The password strength paradox
Here's an uncomfortable truth: the passwords you can remember are probably weak, and the passwords that are strong are probably impossible to remember.
The average person has over 100 online accounts. Expecting anyone to create and remember 100 unique, complex, never-breached passwords is unrealistic.
This is why security experts now recommend:
Use a password manager. Let software generate and store random, unique passwords for every account. You remember one master password; the manager handles the rest.
Enable multi-factor authentication everywhere. Even if your password gets compromised, attackers can't get in without the second factor.
Check your passwords against breach databases. Services can tell you if your specific password has appeared in known breaches, without exposing your actual password.
How breach checking works (without exposing your password)
You might wonder: if I'm checking whether my password has been breached, doesn't that mean I'm sending my password to some website?
Good security tools use a technique called k-anonymity. Here's how it works:
- Your password is converted to a hash (a one-way mathematical transformation)
- Only the first few characters of that hash are sent to the server
- The server returns all breached password hashes that start with those characters
- Your device checks locally whether your full hash appears in that list
The result: you find out if your password has been breached, but the service never sees your actual password or even your complete hash. Your password stays on your device.
The email connection
Why does an email security company care about passwords?
Because passwords and email security are deeply connected:
Phishing steals passwords. The most common way passwords get compromised isn't through sophisticated hacking. It's through phishing emails that trick people into entering credentials on fake login pages.
Email is the recovery mechanism. When attackers want to take over your other accounts, they target your email first. With email access, they can reset passwords everywhere.
Credential stuffing targets email accounts. Your email password is one of the most valuable credentials you have. If it's been breached elsewhere, attackers will try it.
Business Email Compromise starts with account access. Many BEC attacks begin when attackers gain access to a legitimate email account through stolen credentials.
Protecting your email means protecting your passwords, and vice versa.
What you should do today
Check your most important passwords now. Your email, your bank, your work accounts. Find out if they've been compromised.
Stop reusing passwords. If you use the same password anywhere, change it. Start with your email and financial accounts.
Get a password manager. The small inconvenience of setting one up is nothing compared to the damage of credential theft.
Enable MFA on everything. Especially email. This is your single most effective protection against account takeover.
Be skeptical of login pages. Before entering any password, verify you're on the legitimate site. Phishing pages look identical to real ones.
Check your password right now
Wondering if your password is both strong and safe from breaches?
Our free Password Strength Analyzer checks both. Enter any password and get instant feedback on:
- Strength score based on length, complexity, and patterns
- Breach status using k-anonymity (your password stays private)
- Estimated crack time showing how long it would take attackers to break it
- Actionable recommendations to improve your password security
Your password never leaves your device. We use the same privacy-preserving technique trusted by security professionals worldwide.
Protecting passwords is just one part of email security. Ṣọ Email Security provides AI-powered protection against phishing attacks that try to steal your credentials in the first place. Our browser extension analyzes incoming emails in real-time, catching sophisticated phishing attempts before you ever see a fake login page.