“And if you’ve done that, you should change your password immediately. And we don’t think it’s known enough that this is a problem.”
One of the reasons behind the warning is that predictable patterns threaten good cybersecurity because it means cybercriminals can use automated tools to help guess passwords.As a result of large language models (LLMs) generating results based on patterns in their training data, as opposed to generating passwords randomly, they are not creating strong password options. Instead, it just looks like a strong password, but one that could be highly predictable.
While AI can generate those passwords that look complicated, they should not be used as password managers.
The risk of AI-generated passwords
Shockingly, many AI-generated passwords are visible to the naked eye, whereas others just need mathematical analysis to reveal just how unsafe they are.
When Sky used Claude to check this research, the first password it produced was K9#mPx@4vLp2Qn8R. ChatGPT and Gemini were ‘slightly less regular’ with the results they gave, but the results were still ‘repeated passwords’.
These passwords also passed tests using online password checking tools, with the results claiming that the passwords were ‘extremely strong’.
