Ever wonder how secure your passwords are? Odds are the answer is not very secure at all.

One Man's Blog has an article showing just how easy it is to crack most passwords. And since the vast majority of users use the same password for everything from their email to their bank accounts, all you really need to do is find one password. And with some passwords, that can take less than a second. The chart above shows just how long it would take the average cracker to uncover your password using a brute force password generator.

Of course, all hope is not lost. Here are few basic tips toward a more secure existence:

1. Don't make your password a person's name or any word in the dictionary.
2. Don't use your birthday, social security number, or sequential numbers like 1234 (did we really have to tell you this one?)
3. Do use longer passwords (7 or more characters if you can).
4. Do use a combination of letters, numbers, and symbols.
5. Do make your passwords case sensitive and mix up the uppercase and lowercase letters.
6. Substitute letters for numbers. For example "D0wnl04d Squ4d" would take a lot longer to find than "download squad."
7. Do use a different password for every site you visit.

That last one's a killer. You'll either want a good program to keep track of your passwords, or at the very least make sure that you use a different password for your bank account than you use for online photo sharing sites.
[via lifehacker]