Weak password

Password strength is a measure of the effectiveness of a password against guessing or brute-force attacks. In its usual form, it estimates how many trials an attacker who does not have direct access to the password would need, on average, to guess it correctly. The strength of a password is a function of length, complexity, and unpredictability.

Using strong passwords lowers overall risk of a security breach, but strong passwords do not replace the need for other effective security controls. The effectiveness of a password of a given strength is strongly determined by the design and implementation of the factors (knowledge, ownership, inherence). The first factor is the main focus in this article.

The rate at which an attacker can submit guessed passwords to the system is a key factor in determining system security. Some systems impose a time-out of several seconds after a small number (e.g. three) of failed password entry attempts. In the absence of other vulnerabilities, such systems can be effectively secured with relatively simple passwords. However the system must store information about the user passwords in some form and if that information is stolen, say by breaching system security, the user passwords can be at risk.

Passwords are created either automatically (using randomizing equipment) or by a human; the latter case is more common. While the strength of randomly chosen passwords against a brute-force attack can be calculated with precision, determining the strength of human-generated passwords is challenging.

Typically, humans are asked to choose a password, sometimes guided by suggestions or restricted by a set of rules, when creating a new account for a computer system or Internet Web site. Only rough estimates of strength are possible, since humans tend to follow patterns in such tasks, and those patterns can usually assist an attacker. In addition, lists of commonly chosen passwords are widely available for use by password guessing programs. Such lists include the numerous online dictionaries for various human languages, breached databases of plaintext and hashed passwords from various online business and social accounts, along with other common passwords. All items in such lists are considered weak, as are passwords that are simple modifications of them. For some decades, investigations of passwords on multi-user computer systems have shown that 40% or more are readily guessed using only computer programs, and more can be found when information about a particular user is taken into account during the attack.

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