We consider a large class of 2D area-preserving diffeomorphisms that are not uniformly hyperbolic but have strong hyperbolicity properties on large regions of their phase spaces. A prime example is the standard map. Lower bounds for Lyapunov exponents of such systems are very hard to estimate, due to the potential switching of “stable” and “unstable” directions. This paper shows that with the addition of (very) small random perturbations, one obtains with relative ease Lyapunov exponents reflecting the geometry of the deterministic maps.