Brute force is just one of many methods hackers use to crack passwords, which is why it’s so important to use a different long password for each of your online accounts.

Learn why strong, secure paswords matter by seeing how easy it is to crack passwords with a common tool. Longer, more complex passwords are best, and you'll see why.

To determine how long it would take to crack 15,600,000 common passwords via artificial intelligence, Home Security Heroes enlisted an AI tool known as PassGAN.

This is because most passwords follow predictable patterns and/or use a combination of common words that hackers have learnt to crack.

A simple eight-character password can be cracked in only 37 seconds using brute force but it takes over a century to crack a 16-character one.