2y ago

Largest Study of its Kind Shows Outdated Password Practices are Widespread

www.cc.gatech.edu

Largest Study of its Kind Shows Outdated Password Practices are Widespread | College of Computing

Largest Study of its Kind Shows Outdated Password Practices are Widespread::undefined

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2y ago

Largest Study of its Kind Shows Outdated Password Practices are Widespread

www.cc.gatech.edu /news/largest-study-its-kind-shows-outdated-password-practices-are-widespread

46 comments

The article focuses on password requirements that websites implement, not user behaviors. Common bad practices mentioned:
Permit very short passwords
Do not block common passwords
Use outdated requirements like complex characters
- Complex characters are outdated? It also refers to special characters but I guess that's what I was thinking of. So special characters are in, so what is a complex character then?
  
  Length is the most important thing, everything else is somewhat secondary. We should be shifting thinking of this to passphrases rather than passwords.
  I'm sure most of us have seen the "correct horse battery staple" XKCD, but that's what people really need to think of as passwords now, not my-favourite-celebrity-but-with-the-"e"-changed-to-"3"-and-an-exclamation-mark-at-the-end.
  
  A character that extends outside the real number line
  
  I think enforcing complex characters is outdated. Allowing them is enough, since someone brute forcing still needs to consider them. Of course they could try all lower, then mixed, then including complex characters in that order to catch those that don't. But still, it's better to have a password made up of compound words that is longer, than S0meth!ngV3ryC0nvolu73D. Or just pure random (aka password generator)
  My main issue is places that have a maximum password length. This is firstly a limitation on security, but more importantly throws a red flag because of the potential reasons for having a password length limit!
- Do not block common passwords
  Do you mean "not blocking common passwords"?
  This implies that I can totally use "password1"
  
  I copied the list straight from the article, so excuse the awkward phrasing. But yes, the implication is that you could totally use "password1" on some websites.
Password1! is out. passwordoneexclamationmark is in.
- PassWordW0Nexclamationmark%%%
  Pro password hours
- That's amazing! That's the same password I have on my luggage!
- Now that's a pee four dollar sign dollar sign omega zero are dee right there
Largest study ever confirms something everyone has always known
- Except infosec team
  
  It is possible that you have a bad infosec team; however, it is more likely that they need to meet outdated compliance goals (SOC 2 comes to mind here).
  Infosec is unfortunately a tricky balancing act of compliance, security, and usability.
Something something hunter2 ha ha ha it are funy
- Why would you bother making a comment just to not say your password? All I see is stars.
  
  hunter2
- Something something ******* ha ha ha it are funy
  What does this mean?
  
  https://pbs.twimg.com/media/El0ZNS_XEAAuHRt?format=jpg&name=large
- That's a pretty good password. Not *******, but the sentence as a whole.
I am tired of websites imposing limitations on passwords, but not sharing what those are. I use a password generator, and rarely know if Unicode characters are allowed, if there's a limit on the number of characters, etc.
I've come across websites where dashes "-" are forbidden. My banking website only allows a maximum of 16 characters. Sometimes there's a note below the password box, sometimes they don't tell you until your password fails, and sometimes they don't ever tell you. If I don't know what the restrictions are, I'll end up throwing a cheap password at it until I can find out what's acceptable.
- Sometimes the limits they tell you are wrong. Sometimes they truncate your password without telling you. Sometimes the app has different requirements than the website.
- Sometimes they change the requirements, so a password that once had symbols no longer works, and you can't log in anymore.
  
  Even better! They'll sometimes tell you the wrong error message like my bank used to before they redesigned the front end and backend. I couldn't change my password there for the longest time because it kept telling me my password was not between 5-8 characters long (yes it was). Turns out I couldn't use a - in my password. I'm glad they finally updated to to a longer password but I still can't use a - in my password.
here is a tool, that helps with making secure passwords, that respect all the current and former best practices https://neal.fun/password-game/
- Fun. Couldn't get past rule 16 (chess).
  
  I moved every piece to every spot they could go and couldn’t get it. Not sure what the right answer was lol.
- 🥚
  
  Paul!
- old phones last 4 '1234 5678', transpose down a row or two 'zxcv-ghjk' used for years, np use a pw manager now. couldn't tell even 1 pw
Just string a a few random words together, L337 up a few of them, tack on a random number or two, and throw in a punctuation mark somewhere. Then write them down in a little physical notebook.
Passkeys and OTPs should be the new standard. Passwords are obsolete and passphrases are too hard for the average cumsoomer.
- Yes. They really need to play hardball like they did with chip and pin credit card input.
  (If your data is stolen and the vendor did not support chip and pin they were liable for the damages.)
  
  God yeah I remember the 1990s 😂

46 comments