The Hidden Value of Password Cracking in a Password Security Assessment
Why real-world testing matters more than policy reviews
Most organizations believe they have “good password security.” They have a policy. They require complexity. Maybe they even enforce MFA. On paper, everything looks fine.
But on every Password Security Assessment we conduct at Mile High Cyber, we uncover the same uncomfortable truth:
What’s written in policy often has very little to do with what’s happening in the real world.
I remember a recent engagement where the IT director proudly handed us a pristine password policy—14 characters minimum, complexity required, no reuse, MFA enforced for all remote access. It looked perfect.
Two hours into our assessment, we had cracked 35% of the organization’s passwords.
None of them violated the policy on paper.
Any one of them would have allowed an attacker to walk directly into the network.
That’s the value of cracking passwords: it exposes the gap between theory and reality—a gap that attackers exploit every day.
Attackers Don’t Read Policies. They Attack Passwords.
Despite advances in EDR, zero-trust architectures, and AI-driven anomaly detection, attackers still go after the simplest, most reliable target: your passwords.
Why?
Because compromised credentials provide:
Immediate access
Built-in trust
A quiet path for lateral movement
A way to bypass expensive security tools
The ability to blend in with normal user behavior
Threat actors—from ransomware operators to state-sponsored groups—use password cracking as one of their primary tactics. If they can crack one weak credential, they can often escalate to privileged access, compromise backups, and deploy ransomware before anyone notices.
A Password Security Assessment mirrors this attacker workflow, showing you exactly how resistant your organization truly is.
Why Cracking Passwords Reveals More Than You Expect
Password cracking isn’t about embarrassing users or playing “gotcha” with IT staff. It’s about uncovering behavioral patterns and technical misconfigurations that no policy review will ever catch.
Common patterns we uncover during cracking:
Seasonal variations: Winter2025!, Summer24!, Broncos2025!
Company-themed passwords: MileHigh#, Colorado123!, or initials + year
Incrementing sequences: Password!1 → Password!2 → Password!3
Short dictionary-based passwords that meet complexity but fail security
Passwords leaked on the dark web but still in active use
Service accounts using decades-old passwords
Privileged credentials with surprisingly weak combinations
These real-life patterns tell a story—one that policy documents rarely reveal.
The NIST 800-63B Perspective: Password Strength Is More Than “Complexity”
One of the biggest misconceptions in cybersecurity is the idea that password complexity equals password strength. This has been disproven for years, and modern standards reflect that shift.
NIST SP 800-63B recommends:
Allowing long passphrases (64+ characters)
Removing complexity rules (they make passwords predictable)
Eliminating forced periodic password changes
Blocking commonly used, dictionary, and breached passwords
Storing passwords with strong hashing algorithms (e.g., PBKDF2, bcrypt, Argon2)
Screening new passwords against known-compromised lists
In short:
NIST prioritizes passwords that are long, unique, and not found in cracking dictionaries.
A Password Security Assessment—specifically the cracking component—validates whether your environment truly aligns with these recommendations. It tells you:
Are users relying on simple “complexity-compliant” passwords?
Are breached passwords still active internally?
Are password lengths actually sufficient?
Are service accounts protected—or forgotten?
Are your AD password settings aligned with modern guidance?
Most organizations discover that their environment doesn’t match NIST guidance…even if they thought it did.
Cracking Reveals What’s At Risk Right Now
One of the biggest strengths of password cracking is prioritization. When we crack passwords, we can immediately identify:
Privileged accounts using weak or patterned passwords
Domain admins with crackable credentials
Service accounts using “temporary” passwords from years ago
User accounts with passwords found in breach corpuses
Which specific departments or roles need coaching
This turns password remediation from a daunting, organization-wide initiative into a targeted cleanup effort with rapid ROI.
How Mile High Cyber Executes a Password Security Assessment
Our engagements are designed to simulate real attacker techniques while maintaining professionalism, ethics, and discretion.
Safely extract password hashes (with explicit authorization and granted admin credentials)
Use advanced cracking methods (rule-based, mask attacks, hybrid attacks, custom wordlists)
Test against breached-password corpuses
Identify crackable passwords and high-risk accounts
Analyze behaviors and patterns
Cross-reference findings against NIST 800-63B guidance
Deliver a clear, actionable report with prioritized remediation steps
We focus on fixing the environment, not shaming users.
Conclusion: Cracking Passwords Is One of the Most Valuable Security Tests You Can Run
Organizations spend heavily on firewalls, EDR platforms, MDR providers, and cloud security tools. Yet the simplest attack vector—credentials—remains the most consistently exploited.
A Password Security Assessment with Mile High Cyber:
Uncovers hidden, real-world vulnerabilities
Aligns your environment with NIST 800-63B
Identifies high-risk accounts immediately
Strengthens your identity security posture
Provides data-backed metrics for long-term improvement
Reduces the attack surface where it matters most
If you want to see the reality behind your password policy—and close one of the most common attack paths—password cracking needs to be part of your security program.
Ready to Strengthen Your Password Security?
Mile High Cyber offers standalone Password Security Assessments or can bundle an engagement with a network penetration test.