Meet cybercriminal dpxaker: Long, unique passwords are too much work for him!

Celebrating Cybersecurity Awareness Month in October

October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month, and this year’s message is simple: Don’t make life easy for cybercriminals.

Dariy Pankov, known among hackers as “dpxaker,” paid for his lavish lifestyle by selling passwordcracking software to criminals for just $250 – no subscription required.

Powered by his program, hackers don’t have to sit in a dark room guessing passwords one at a time – dpxaker’s software and AI tests thousands of password combinations every second. These hackers love pet names and birthdays – they really love short passwords and reused passwords!

Don’t make life easy for dpxaker

• Every password should be at least 16 characters long
• Every password needs to be unique to the account
• Every password should be a random mix of letters, numbers, and symbols

Use a password manager to create and store awesome passwords — they are safe, easy to use, and many are even free!

An 8-character password can be cracked in seconds, no matter how many &s and !s you use. A complex 16-character password takes billions of years to crack – and hackers don’t have that kind of time!

Find more cybersecurity resources

Find more free cybersecurity tips and resources from the

• National Cybersecurity Alliance
• Cybersecurity and Infrastrastructure & Security Agency
• Heartland Resources

This October, make life difficult for cybercriminals.