How secure are your passwords? Not very

Using only a laptop and readily-available online tools, Nate Anderson managed to expose 8,059 encrypted passwords in a matter of minutes:

I was at least in a position now to crack thousands of passwords in mere minutes. I could get everything from common passwords (iloveyou1, iloveyou13, iloveyou19, iloveyou81) to odd passwords (hahapoop3) to long passwords (rangefinder12) to passwords incorporating mixed case characters, numbers, and symbols (Jordan2!). Had I been the one who “liberated” this particular set of hashes, I would have been well-placed to wreak havoc on thousands of accounts—more than enough for some real mischief.

So if you use one password for everything, and it’s compromised on just one site through an attack like Anderson demonstrated, every online account you have could be compromised. Scary.