I’ve been told the same thing for years: lengthen your passwords. Add more characters, add symbols, mix uppercase and lowercase letters and you’ll be safer online.
But as password attacks become more sophisticated and tools like password managers become more common, longer passwords aren’t always the best solution when it comes to data protection.
Length is important (ha), but how you create and manage a password is often just as important, if not more so.
A password that is long, predictable, or reused across multiple accounts can still be hacked, leaked, or exploited. At the same time, a shorter password, generated and stored correctly, could provide stronger protection.
Here’s how password length really works, where it’s useful, where it’s not, and what security experts recommend.
Why longer passwords are generally more secure
The strength of a password depends largely on entropy, which measures the difficulty of guessing a password. The more characters a password has, especially if those characters are random, the more combinations an attacker will have to try.
A 16-character password consisting of random letters, numbers, and symbols (v9$QmR!2Zp#L8w@D) can It takes centuries to use brute force with current computing power. By comparison, an eight-character password (S3cur3!9), even a complex one, can take only hours or days if attackers have access to modern hacking tools.
For this reason, organizations like National Institute of Standards and TechnologyThe federal agency that sets cybersecurity guidelines for governments and technology companies recommends long passwords or passphrases instead of short, complex passwords.
When passwords are long don’t do it aid
Length alone won’t save you if the password is predictable. A long password like PasswordPassword123! It is much easier to decipher than a shorter but completely random one.
Another common problem is reusing long passwords across multiple accounts. When a data breach occurs on a website, attackers often try to use the same credentials elsewhere. This tactic is called “credential stuffing.” In this case, even a very long and complicated password offers little protection.
Phishing attacks also completely ignore password length. If you are tricked into entering your credentials on a fake login page, attackers don’t have to hack anything; You give it to them on a silver platter.
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Secret phrases: easier to remember, harder to guess
A popular alternative to traditional passwords is a passphrase, a standalone sequence of words such as: Carpet River Battery Moon. Because passphrases are long and don’t rely on predictable substitutions, they are much harder to crack than short, complex passwords and easier to remember.
Passphrases are particularly good for things you need have that you have to remember, such as the master password for a password manager or device registration.
Password managers are still the gold standard
However, security experts, including the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, generally agree Passwords that are randomly generated and stored in a password manager They are always the reference. They combine length, randomness, and uniqueness without having to rely on your memory (or a sticky note in your desk drawer).
The downside is that you rely on a single tool that protects many logins. Therefore, it is especially important to protect your master password, enable two-factor authentication, and keep recovery options up to date.
So what should you really do?
Long passwords are better, but only if they are Unique, random and well managed. The safest settings for most people are:
- Use a password manager to generate and store long, unique passwords. Create a secure, easy-to-remember master password or passphrase.
- If possible, enable two-factor authentication.
- Avoid reusing passwords, regardless of their length.
- Change passwords exposed in a data breach, even if they were long.
- Beware of phishing emails and fake login pages that completely bypass password security.
- When available, use access keys that replace passwords with biometric or device-based logins that cannot be forged or tampered with.
As with most cybersecurity issues, password security is not just a perfect rule. It is about superimposing protection measures so that, even in the event of a failure, the others continue to exist.
