this post was submitted on 11 Mar 2026

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170

Warning: Your AI-Generated Password Is a Major Security Risk. Here’s What to Use Instead (www.rd.com)

submitted 1 day ago by gedaliyah@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

67 comments fedilink hide all child comments

At a glance, the passwords the LLMs created looked secure, much like those that a password generator might spit out. But that’s exactly where the problems arose: Although the AI-generated passwords appeared to be complex and safe to use for securing online accounts, they were actually quite predictable upon closer inspection.

All three LLMs exhibited clearly identifiable patterns in how they created these passwords. These patterns included repeated character strings, predictable password structure, frequent reuse of similar characters, clear biases toward certain numbers and letters, and even duplicate passwords in some cases. Although the AI-generated passwords looked random, they really weren’t. This could easily create a false sense of security if you were to use these predictable passwords for your online accounts.

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[–] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 31 points 1 day ago (1 children)

AI generated password

... I'm sorry, what just happened? I think I had a mini aneurysm. Let me read that ag.....

In all seriousness, WTAF is wrong with people? What removed Baphomet wannabe came up with that negative IQ idea? SERIOUSLY... WTF IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE. ARGH!

Here I am giving security training to my coworkers and then I have to read this. This is like me spending a life long sifting through all my garbage to make sure everything is nicely separated for recycling, using the bike to go anywhere, to make sure my carbon footprint is as small as possible and over flies Taylor Swift in her private jet undoing my life's work in a single fucking trip.

Seriously this gives me a headache

[–] a1studmuffin@aussie.zone 7 points 1 day ago

I watched someone in a YouTube video ask ChatGPT to add up some numbers for them, despite having a calculator on their phone. The sheer laziness at the expense of someone else's energy was impressive. And don't even get me started on the accuracy.

[–] cheese_greater@lemmy.world 162 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (11 children)

Why does everything have to be LLM, like why cant things sometimes just be algorithmically generated like my AI-free password manager does?

I wonder if there's AI-powered password managers on the market now lol. If so and if customers, I would mirror Zuck's snide "thuh dumb fucks" setiment when people trusted him

ZXCVBN algorithm has never failed me. I can generate passwords that would take 1 quadrillion guesses/second hackers over 90 million years (testing 1 quad/sec) on the reg

[–] Naich@lemmings.world 44 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I remember the days before hardware random number generators, when pseudo random number generators caused fuck ups by not actually being random. Now people are re-inventing the stupid way of doing it with AI.

[–] cheese_greater@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago

It blows my mind hackers still found ways in with just that one fuckup

[–] BrainBow65@lemmy.world 32 points 1 day ago (2 children)

It's worse than just using a new tool though. By definition LLMs use the statistically most likely option (with minor variation for flavor). People are literally asking a statistics bot what password can I use that is the most likely?

[–] cheese_greater@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I was gonna say that. They gonna give you a recycled pattern

I mean, like, what is an effective/"good" password if not an unrecycled non-pattern??

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[–] artyom@piefed.social 15 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

There's AI-powered everything now for no reason other than because when they slap those two letters on it, their stocks go up. A lot of times there's not even any AI involved.

I remember CES 2022 when derb8uer found these "AI PC cases" and when he asked about why, they said "because you can put an AI PC in it". And that's when I knew it was a bubble. Because that's the kind of shit that happened with dotcom. Companies slapping "dotcom" on their names and their stocks would skyrocket for no reason.

[–] cheese_greater@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago

Stox go brrrrr

[–] Madrigal@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago

But…but Magic Box™

[–] BrianTheeBiscuiteer@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago

I always say I'm not interested in asking an LLM to add 2 + 2 for me. Of course my managers are always pushing us to use LLMs and coworkers keep suggesting we replace efficient, testable, and consistent processes with AI. If you're going to use it at least think of scenarios that are hard to code for and it would take you at least 10 min to solve.

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[–] asudox@lemmy.asudox.dev 94 points 1 day ago (7 children)

which dumbass lets LLMs generate their passwords?

[–] partofthevoice@lemmy.zip 2 points 9 hours ago

Literally anyone who vibecoded a project. Projects need secrets.

[–] Deceptichum@quokk.au 36 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I just set my password to hunter2, no one will ever figure it out.

[–] popekingjoe@lemmy.world 33 points 1 day ago (2 children)

What is that? All I see is *******.

[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 9 hours ago

An oldie but a goodie

[–] crandlecan@mander.xyz 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Let me test that

JsfJhdYhb57'j4++€€djF

[–] crandlecan@mander.xyz 14 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Shit 😩

[–] whyrat@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Don't put a quote mark in your password! I learned the hard way with password'drop table users;'

[–] jcorvera@quokk.au 5 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Wait, was this because you too had a student named "Robert'); DROP TABLE users;--"?

[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 9 hours ago

Little Bobby Tables

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[–] dhork@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I just use the same combination that I have on my luggage

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[–] Deestan@lemmy.world 11 points 1 day ago

What do you mean. Why would it be a problem that my password is the most statistically likely sequence of characters in the world? And that the password is stored in plaintext in a chat log? And used for training LLMs on password conversations?

[–] binarytobis@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

If someone I knew told me they asked an LLM to generate their password, I would no longer talk to that person.

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[–] KyuubiNoKitsune@lemmy.blahaj.zone 25 points 1 day ago

AI generated password? What kind of brain rot idea is that, god damn. Do these people need to ask AI to breathe for them?

I can also generate a password for them while running 50 toasters and flushing the toilet a bunch if they want.

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 33 points 1 day ago (1 children)

why. dafuq. would someone use an llm to make a password.

[–] dhork@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago

Because the techbros are pushing AI (really LLMs, but that is too many letters) for everything to justify their insane stock valuations

[–] Randomgal@lemmy.ca 25 points 1 day ago (1 children)

My brother you can literally slam your face on the keyboard to get a password. Why would you ask an llm' to do it for you?

[–] Dindonmasker@sh.itjust.works 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I'm pretty sure there's an algorithm somewhere to solve for face to keyboard password generation.

[–] FauxLiving@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

Let me ask ~~ChatGPT~~ Claude

[–] yggstyle@lemmy.world 41 points 1 day ago

Why would anyone... Who the fuck is using glorified autocomplete to generate a random unique password?

Anyone that stupid deserves the breach and any company that integrates that moronic idea deserves the blowback.

[–] atopi@piefed.blahaj.zone 9 points 1 day ago

if only there existed a better way to generate passwords

[–] HertzDentalBar@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 points 1 day ago

Wait ... Wat? Why would you even...

[–] Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world 18 points 1 day ago (2 children)

It takes a five line Python script to generate a secure password. But no, let's waste a gigantic amount of energy to have a slop machine do it very badly.

[–] kayzeekayzee@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Bet I can do it in less

[–] kayzeekayzee@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (4 children)

import random
password_length=10
letters = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789-&@$?!*#%"
print(''.join(random.sample(letters+letters+letters.upper()+letters.upper(), password_length)))

If you inline password_length and letters, you can bring it down to 2 lines

[–] Deestan@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

print(''.join(__import__('random').sample(etc... for one-lining it :)

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[–] cyberpunk007@lemmy.ca 10 points 1 day ago

"here's what to use instead"

...the same thing we always have been? Keepass or other password managers with randomly generated passwords?

[–] flamingo_pinyata@sopuli.xyz 18 points 1 day ago

LLMs are predictive text machines. Focus on "predictive". Of course they will not output random text.

Note: not fully deterministic though - they need (pseudo)randomness at few critical points to be good

[–] Artisian@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Just noticing: there's 0 evidence in article that anyone is doing this. I just don't buy that this is happening enough to matter. Interesting as interpretability research at best

[–] xthexder@l.sw0.com 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

There's actually lots of evidence of people using AI to generate GUIDs that are infact not globally unique.

[–] Artisian@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Source appreciated? Was this inside the research paper?

[–] xthexder@l.sw0.com 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 23 hours ago) (1 children)

I've seen it personally at work where the AI generates its own metadata files containing uuids that it made up, and they end up being duplicates from elsewhere in the project. Unfortunately I can't really share links.

I'm sure you could find examples in GitHub issues

Edit: I had an honest look, and can't seem to find anything that isn't AI slop in web searches anymore... GUIDs aren't exactly the most common thing in the first place, so maybe I overstated how common this is.

[–] Artisian@lemmy.world 1 points 13 hours ago

Np, search is getting terrible. Thanks for looking!

[–] Th4tGuyII@fedia.io 6 points 1 day ago

How did we manage to move almost completely away from Pseudo-random password generation, only to come straight back to it via LLMs again.

People will really just shove these things into anything like they're a bloody panacea, when really they're just extremely well-trained parrots.

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