Computers attacked every 39 seconds
In an experiment to determine the extent of password attacks, researchers at the University of Maryland set up four computers with weak passwords, and watched what happened over a 24-day period late last year.
The PCs endured more than a quarter million automated attempts to crack their usernames and passwords. That's one password attack every 39 seconds.
Researcher Michel Cukier says he wanted to quantify the extent of the password-attack problem to help push people into using stronger computer passwords.