A 6 character password (just letters) can be cracked in just 10 minutes while a 9 character password complete with letters, uppercase, numbers and symbols will take 44,530 years to crack. Take a look at the list below to see other comparisons, the first column describes your password, the other columns show you how long the hackers need to hack your password. Most-used passwords: 123456, password, 12345678, qwerty, abc123 Time it takes a hacker's computer to randomly guess your password: Length: 6 characters Lowercase: 10 minutes + Uppercase: 10 hours + Nos. & Symbols: 18 days Length: 7 characters Lowercase: 4 hours + Uppercase: 23 days + Nos. & Symbols: 4 years Length: 8 characters Lowercase: 4 days + Uppercase: 3 years + Nos. & Symbols: 463 years Length: 9 characters Lowercase: 4 months + Uppercase: 178 years + Nos. & Symbols: 44,530 years Average amount it costs a business to field a phone call requesting a password reset: $10 Proportion of help desk calls that are password-related: 30% Users who choose a common word or simple key combination for a password: 50% Source: Business Week