![]() Option #2 is a good example of security theater: choosing an over-the-top one when a shorter would suffice – tactics that do little or nothing to increase your security yet feel like they do. Go to the other extreme and create prohibitively difficult passwords when they don’t need to.They even change the password, but it's equally bad as the one they had originally Not by choice, but because they don't actually understand how passwords are exploited. When people realize they have poor passwords, they tend to have one of two possible reactions, in my experience: Below we're going to go over a few of those elements that are important to fine-tune when creating a password. There's a sweet spot to a good password - that depends on your personal preference, and we'll also talk about that - and finding that spot is what this article is all about. The example above would be so cumbersome to use that dialing down its strength to "secure enough" would make it a better password. "Avoiding password pitfalls is all about identifying unintended risks or consequences that can arise with the password you choose, despite it being a strong password." Despite how big that entropy is and how secure it may look like, a password that strong would need some 40 (the minimum possible N when using all 95 valid characters so that 95^N is equal or greater than 2^250) randomized alphanumeric characters, and that makes it a horrible password for regular users. The mathematical is out of the scope of this article, so we'll look at it from a practical point of view today.Ĭonsider, for instance, a password with 250 bits of entropy. ![]() Is there such thing as a password too strong? We can answer that question in two ways: a practical one and a mathematical one. (While nothing is 100% secure, what lies ahead is the gold-standard when it comes to password creation today and should last for a very long time.) What Pitfalls to Avoid When Creating Passwords The goal is that, by the end of this article, you will have all the necessary tools to create an uncrackable password. One, so it's fresh on your mind while you read and think of ways to avoid them, and two, because I think you'll appreciate the suggestions more if you know what problems they solve. if not, I highly recommend you go read the first part of this article before you read this one.īefore I present you what I think are good solutions to the password problem, let's talk about what are "bad passwords" first. If you're familiar with the power of two notations, entropy, sample space, and uniform randomness, I think you'll understand most of what I'll talk about below. In part 1, we talked about how passwords are cracked and what makes them easier or more difficult to crack depending on the type of attack, information an attacker has about you, etc. This is the second part of our password series.
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