Bank accounts and personal information online are at greater risk than ever thanks to "hopelessly inadequate" passwords and brute force tactics used by hackers.

A research team working at the Georgia Tech Research Institute in the United States has found many people's passwords can be discovered through the sheer computing power of the latest processors.

Graphics cards are being combined with software programs in order to break passwords at a great speed - by trying different password combinations repeatedly until the right one is found.

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