Passwords
As systems have matured over many years and security has become much more important, advice about choosing the “best” password continues to evolve.
This page will generate 3 variants of password with 12, 13 or 16 characters:
| Number of passwords to generate: | |
- 12 character passwords are made from KS1/2 word lists of 3, 4 and 5 characters (with no inserted characters or substitutions) - used for KS2 pupil online learning platform accounts.
- 13 character passwords use a combination of more complex words from much longer lists, with special caracter and digit - making them significantly more secure
- 16 character passwords use the same process as the 13 character version except they use lists of longer words
The 16 character passwords will take 94 quadrillion years (94,000,000,000,000,000) to crack using brute force and with over 2 trillion (2,166,494,761,000 ish) possible unique combinations, the probability of duplication is 0.000,000,000,000,46 : 1 (apparently).
Some systems still require passwords to be changed regularly but this is no longer considered best practice as it often leads users to choose weak passwords or resort to writing them all down (see some of the links below).
Links
- National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC - part of GCHQ) - The problems with forcing regular password expiry
- Netwrix - Password policy best practices for strong security
- Sam Schlinkert’s generated word lists and his Orchard Street wordlists
- AgileWords word lists - another 18,328 word list
- GRC’s Password Haystacks - measure how crackable a password is
- Hive Systems - are your passwords in the green?
