Experts warn: Most passwords are too short

September 3, 2010 by Sam Narisi

Posted in: In this week's e-newsletter, Latest News & Views, Security

As computers get more powerful, so do password cracking tools. Many businesses and users haven’t been keeping up.

Today, even carefully chosen passwords are susceptible to brute force attacks.

The best defense is using longer passwords. A computer keyboard has 95 keys, so each extra character makes the password 95 times harder to crack.

Analysts at the Georgia Tech Research Institute recommend a password of no less than 12 characters.

Of course, users should also avoid choosing common words to prevent so-called “dictionary” attacks, in which hackers run through a list of dictionary words until the password is found.

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Tags: brute force attacks, Georgia Tech Research Institute, passwords

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