Is Your Password Actually Safe?

We have all been there. You are signing up for a new service, and you get hit with the dreaded validation rule: Password must contain 8 characters, one upper case, one number, and a special symbol.

Frustrated, you probably do what millions of other people do: you take your standard password, capitalize the first letter, and tack a 1! on the end.

It passes the check. You get logged in. But is that password actually safe?

At Ryse Software, we spend a lot of time thinking about digital security so our clients don’t have to. We’ve noticed that while computers have gotten faster and hackers have gotten smarter, the way most people build passwords hasn’t changed in twenty years.

That is why we are releasing a new, completely free tool today: https://ismypasswordsafe.com.

But before you go click that link, let’s talk about why we built it, and unlearn some bad habits about password security.

The Two Ways Passwords Fail

Generally speaking, there are two main ways a hacker gets into your account.

1. The Brute Force Attack

This is where a computer program guesses millions of password combinations per second until it finds yours. If your password is short (like Ryse2025), a modern graphics card can crack it almost instantly.

2. The Data Breach (Credential Stuffing)

This is actually more common. A hacker doesn’t guess your password; they simply look it up. If you used the password Mustang1968 on a forum that got hacked five years ago, that password is now in a database on the dark web. If you use that same password for your email or bank, the hackers have the keys to the kingdom.

Understanding “Entropy”: The Math of Safety

You have probably been taught that complexity is the key to safety. You swap an “E” for a “3” or an “S” for a ”$”.

The truth? Length beats complexity every time.

This brings us to a concept called Entropy. In cybersecurity, entropy is a measure of randomness and unpredictability. It’s the mathematical probability of someone guessing your password.

Imagine a lottery.

• Low Entropy: A lottery with 10 balls. It’s easy to guess the winner.
• High Entropy: A lottery with 10 million balls. Good luck guessing that one.

A short password like J4&m! looks complex, but it has low entropy because it is short. A computer can run through every 5-character combination very quickly.

However, a long phrase like correct horse battery staple (a famous example from the comic XKCD) contains no symbols or numbers, but it has extremely high entropy. The number of characters creates so many mathematical possibilities that it would take a supercomputer centuries to guess it.

The Solution: The “Diceware” Method

So, how do you create a password that is high-entropy (hard for computers) but memorable (easy for humans)?

You use Diceware.

Historically, this involved rolling physical dice to select random words from a numbered list. The result is a Passphrase: a string of 4 or 5 completely random words.

• Bad Password: Tr0ub4dor&3 (Hard to remember, surprisingly easy to crack).
• Good Passphrase: purple panda washing machine (Easy to remember, incredibly hard to crack).

Introducing: Is My Password Safe?

We wanted to make these concepts accessible to everyone—not just our tech-savvy clients. So, we built a simple, single-page tool to handle the heavy lifting.

Try it now at ismypasswordsafe.com

Here is what our new tool does for you:

1. The Breach Check

We have integrated the Have I Been Pwned API—the industry standard for breach data. When you type a password into our tool, we check to see if that password has appeared in known data leaks.

Privacy Note: We take your security seriously. When you check a password, we don’t actually see it. We convert your password into a cryptographic “hash” (a unique string of garbled characters) and send only a fragment of that hash to the database. Your actual password never leaves your browser in plain text.

2. The Entropy Analyzer

If your password hasn’t been breached, we run the math on it. We calculate the “bits” of entropy to tell you if your password is weak, strong, or overkill. It’s a great way to visualize why adding just one more word to your passphrase creates a massive jump in security.

3. The Diceword Generator

Don’t want to think of random words? Let us do it for you. We have built a generator that instantly creates high-entropy, easy-to-read passphrases. You can copy them with a single click.

A Tool for IT Professionals and Experts

If you work in IT or Cybersecurity, you know the struggle. You explain password hygiene to your clients until you are blue in the face, but they still set their password to Companyname1!.

We built Is My Password Safe? to be a tool for you, too.

It is lightweight, ad-free, and educational. Instead of explaining entropy to a non-technical user, just send them this link. Let the tool show them why their current password is weak, and let the tool generate a safe one for them. It’s a great resource to include in your onboarding documentation or security audits.

The Ultimate Combo: Passphrases + Password Managers

You might be thinking, “This sounds great, but if I have 50 accounts, I can’t remember 50 different sentences about purple pandas.”

You are absolutely right. The human brain isn’t built for that.

This is where a Password Manager (like 1Password, Bitwarden, or Apple Keychain) comes in. We recommend using our tool to generate one incredibly strong, memorable Master Passphrase.

You memorize that one phrase to unlock your Password Manager. Then, let the Password Manager generate and store random, complex garbage (like 8x#L9m@vK!) for all your other accounts (Netflix, Amazon, Facebook).

You only have to remember one thing, but you are secure everywhere.

Why We Built This

We are a small agency, but we believe in a safer internet. We built this tool because we wanted something clean, fast, and private that we could send to our own customers when they ask, “How do I make a good password?”

It’s free, it’s fast, and it might just save you from a headache down the road.

Go ahead—give it a spin and see how strong your current password really is.

Check your security now at ismypasswordsafe.com