Hackers can crack these kinds of passwords in a matter of seconds. So inevitably people used simple words, names, birthdates,Īnd sayings, swapping out letters with similar-looking special characters. But we humans are bad at creating randomness, and we’re bad at To change your passwords frequently and use numbers, capitals, and specialĬharacters. It’sĪbout how to create the most secure systems possible in light of humanįor decades, the advice from information security experts was AviD’s Rule of Usabilityīut XKCD’s argument is not primarily about mathematics. Such a password cannot be dictionary attacked, so it must be brute-forced, which would take modern computers billions of years (new window) to do. For example, a 20-character password consisting of random lower-case letters is much stronger than a four-word passphrase composed of common words. By lengthening the password or adding words to the passphrase, you can increase the entropy. So, mathematically speaking, a passphrase could be more secure.īut not always. There are only 94 possible options for each password character, meaning, less uncertainty. Even so, the passphrase contains more entropy than the password. XKCD assumes the attacker knows the user has generated a passphrase by choosing four of the most common (top 2,048 in this example) dictionary words at random. This is why longer passwords are favored, because they presumably contain more “randomness.” Generally, the more randomness is contained in a password, the harder it is to crack the password. Entropy is a concept in information theory which basically refers to the amount of randomness contained in a password. Much of the debate centered around the amount of entropy each of his examples contained. A passphrase is more secure… sometimesĪfter the XKCD comic came out, there was a wave of discussion (new window) online about whether the advice was correct. This makes passphrases easier to remember, typically by using a mnemonic device (new window). Although passphrases often contain more characters than passwords do, passphrases contain fewer “components” (four words instead of, say, 12 random characters). “correcthorsebatterystaple” is the passphrase in the comic. A passphrase is a kind of password that uses a series of words, separated by spaces or not (it doesn’t really matter). While everybody knows what is a password, fewer people know about passphrases. Use encryption methods that slow down the process of guessing. Guess hundreds of billions of passwords per second, though companies typically Programs against the list to see if they match. Password database, then it’s only a matter of running password-guessing Password in encrypted form on its servers. When you create an online account, the company stores your Many people think a password is meant to protect them from Trained everyone to use passwords that are hard for humans to remember, but Munroe concludes, “Through 20 years of effort, we’ve successfully Because of this, people use simpler passwords, write them down, or reuse them, thus weakening password security further. The illustration attempts to demonstrate mathematically, using information theory (new window), that passwords tend to be weaker than passphrases while also being more difficult to remember. Several years ago, the science comic blogger Randall Munroe, otherwise known as XKCD, posted a comic (new window) comparing passwords and passphrases. Last update on NovemPublished on March 5, 2019
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