{"id":17223,"date":"2013-08-27T12:01:29","date_gmt":"2013-08-27T19:01:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.intego.com\/mac-security-blog\/?p=17223"},"modified":"2020-05-04T23:51:49","modified_gmt":"2020-05-05T06:51:49","slug":"the-end-of-passphrase-passwords","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intego.com\/mac-security-blog\/the-end-of-passphrase-passwords\/","title":{"rendered":"The End of Passphrase Passwords?"},"content":{"rendered":"

For those of you who are fans of the webcomic xkcd<\/a>, you may recall the suggestion to use passphrases (such as “correct horse battery staple”) rather than hard-to-remember gibberish passwords.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Well, it would appear that the utility of that suggestion is coming to an end. A freely available password-cracking tool has just come out with an improved version that will crack passwords of up to 55 characters<\/a> in length – primarily by searching for dictionary words.<\/p>\n

This isn’t quite the end of passphrase passwords yet, however. There are still ways to use passwords more securely. As we’ve suggested in the past<\/a>, passphrases can be made more secure by adding some additional variety. Rather than simply “correcthorsebatterystaple,” you could use “Corr3ctHor$eBa77erySt@ple” and your password complexity goes up significantly. Likewise, you could use a password manager <\/a>to create a strong, random-gibberish password that you don’t have to try to remember.<\/p>\n

\"PassPhrase\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On a related note, albeit primarily of academic interest (i.e. Don’t Panic), it looks like passwords and encryption will need to change significantly within the next 10+ years<\/a> as Quantum Computers become a common reality. The upshot of this idea is that as computers become drastically more powerful, they’ll be able to cut through the algorithms currently used to secure data like a hot knife through butter. But then, very smart people are also working on solutions to this, especially as the whole NSA scandal<\/a> has people entirely freaked out that governments are now (or will soon be<\/a>) able to break some of the more complex existing algorithms. In the meantime, world records continue to be set in breaking longer algorithms<\/a>. Yowza!<\/p>\n

photo credit: Simon Lieschke<\/a> via photopin<\/a> cc<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For those of you who are fans of the webcomic xkcd, you may recall the suggestion to use passphrases (such as “correct horse battery staple”) rather than hard-to-remember gibberish passwords. Well, it would appear that the utility of that suggestion is coming to an end. A freely available password-cracking tool has just come out with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":17225,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[13],"tags":[601,353,96],"yoast_head":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n