How to check the strength of your passwords in the storage
August 15, 2024
ID 141167
Kaspersky Password Manager checks if:
- You use the same passwords for multiple accounts.
- You use weak passwords.
- You use a password that has appeared in a data breach
Kaspersky Password Manager checks if your passwords have previously appeared in a password breach database. When checking, Kaspersky Password Manager does not send any of your data anywhere. To check a password, first, it is encrypted with Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA). The result of this encryption is a long string of symbols, for example,
da34a3ee 5e6b9b0d 3245bfef 9560g890 afd84709
, called a hash. Secure Hash Algorithm is designed to make it impossible to restore the original value by using its hash. Secondly, a small part of this hash string is used to find all the hacked passwords in the database whose hashes contain similar symbols. The application then gets the full values of similar hashes and on its own side compares the received hashes with the hashes that are being checked. This is all done to make sure that no one can restore your passwords except you.
Additionally, the safety of your data can be compromised if you use information that is easy to guess as a password (such as family members' names or dates of birth). This cannot be checked automatically. We recommend that you use our built-in Password Generator to create strong passwords.
To check the strength of your passwords in the storage:
- Go to the Passwords section.
- Enter your main password and click the Unlock storage button.
- In the upper-right part of the window, click the More actions button.
- Select the Show weak passwords menu item.
The Weak passwords section appears in the main window. The section displays a list of passwords that have been found to contain vulnerabilities. Click on an item to view detailed information.