Password Length Guide: How Long Should It Be?
Why length beats complexity: entropy math, NIST recommendations, and the right minimum length for different threat models.
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Tags: security, passwords, best-practices
Password Length Guide: How Long Should Your Password Actually Be? The debate over password requirements has raged for decades. Should you require uppercase letters? Symbols? Expiration every 90 days? Modern security research has settled most of these debates. The answer to nearly all of them is: length matters more than complexity, and cracking time grows exponentially with every character you add. This guide works through the math of password entropy, shows exactly how crack times scale with length, and explains what NIST currently recommends for production systems. The Entropy Formula Password strength is measured in bits of entropy. The formula is: Entropy (bits) = Length × log₂(Character Set Size) The character set size depends on which types of characters you allow: Lowercase only…
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