Managing Password Security for Users

Selecting appropriate user passwords is always an exercise in trade-offs. A password such as password (do not laugh, it has been used often in the real world and with devastating consequences) is just too easy to guess by an intruder. So are simple words or number combinations (the numbers from a street address or date of birth, for example). You would be surprised how many people use easily guessed passwords such as 123456, iloveyou, Qwerty, or abc123.

In contrast, a password such as 2a56u’”F($84u&#^Hiu44Ik%$([#EJD is sure to present great difficulty to an intruder (or an auditor). However, that password is so difficult to remember that it would be likely that the password owner would write that password ...

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