10/04/2026
You don’t have to make life easy for cybercriminals and you don’t have to be tech savvy to adopt the behaviors that make their jobs tough. They log off empty-handed, and you can enjoy the internet and all the scrolling, shopping, and clicking you can handle. Over the month of October, we'll be sharing stories of a few real scammers. While some of them have been arrested, more are following in their footsteps, and we want you to make their lives difficult.
Meet dpxaker: Long, unique passwords are too much work for him!
Dariy Pankov, known among hackers as “dpxaker,” paid for his lavish lifestyle by selling password-cracking software to criminals for just $250 – no subscription required. Powered by his program, hackers don’t have to sit in a dark room guessing passwords one at a time – dpxaker’s software and AI tests thousands of password combinations every second. These hackers love pet names and birthdays – they really love short passwords and reused passwords!
Strong Password Tips:
• Every password should be at least 16 characters long
• Every password needs to be unique to the account
• Every password should be a random mix of letters, numbers, and symbols
• Use a password manager to create and store awesome passwords – they are safe, easy to use, and many are even free!
An 8-character password can be cracked in seconds, no matter how many &s and !s you use. A complex 16-character password takes billions of years to crack – and hackers don’t have that kind of time!
