How Hackers Steal Your Passwords

The two most common methods hackers use to get your passwords:

Dictionary Attack- In this type of attack hackers will have a list of words (a “wordlist”) of commonly used passwords and will check if you are using any of those. These lists usually contain names, places, dates and other common letter combinations (such as letters that appear next to each-other on your keyboard).

Brute Force- They try all possible combinations of letters and numbers (and occasionaly symbols). If your password is shorter than 8 characters then it can be cracked relatively easily with a brute force attack, because a hacker with a fast computer can try thousands of passwords every second.

So what are the best ways to elude these attacks?
Do not use words that are found in the dictionary.
Make your password at least 8 characters long, if possible even longer. This will make brute force attack take a far longer time, to the point where they may take hundreds of years and discourage hackers.