In fact, it matters so much that the term password is just plain wrong. Passphrase is better, and I did mean to start using that term instead. When it comes to user education things are often hard to quantify, but looking at the recent password breaches the message doesn't seem to register.
The issue is compounded by a users habit of having a single password and using it everywhere. As their password is used and re-used all over work, home and the internet it needs to meet the password criteria of several "password policies". Luckily for us that means that most users have a password of 6-8 characters, usually containing one or more numbers.
I won't go too much into detail about password length, but suffice to say that you should ditch your password and go for a passphrase instead. I would also recommend that you don't make it a simple sentence, but rather something obscure like your grandfathers address combined with the name of your cousins pet rabbit. That should ensure it's not too easy to crack using a dictionary attack.
This months password tool is lensort.pl. It will split a dictionary file into several smaller files based on number of characters in the file;
You can download the script from https://github.com/wireghoul/Jason
The issue is compounded by a users habit of having a single password and using it everywhere. As their password is used and re-used all over work, home and the internet it needs to meet the password criteria of several "password policies". Luckily for us that means that most users have a password of 6-8 characters, usually containing one or more numbers.
I won't go too much into detail about password length, but suffice to say that you should ditch your password and go for a passphrase instead. I would also recommend that you don't make it a simple sentence, but rather something obscure like your grandfathers address combined with the name of your cousins pet rabbit. That should ensure it's not too easy to crack using a dictionary attack.
This months password tool is lensort.pl. It will split a dictionary file into several smaller files based on number of characters in the file;
root@bt:~/Jason# ./lensort.pl /mnt/hgfs/Tools/wordlists/Trek Sorting 530 passwords by length Finished 6.txt Finished 11.txt Finished 3.txt Finished 7.txt Finished 9.txt Finished 12.txt Finished 15.txt Finished 14.txt Finished 8.txt Finished 4.txt Finished 13.txt Finished 10.txt Finished 5.txt
You can download the script from https://github.com/wireghoul/Jason
