Password Guidelines

We are a computer security testbed, so please use a strong password.

You may be reading this because you were told that your new password, 'qwerty1234', is in the dictionary. We do not mean the Oxford English Dictionary here. What we use is a large list of dictionary words combined with actual passwords that have been found in the wild. For example, the ​RockYou hack ended up revealing the unencrypted passwords of 32 million people (and about 14 million unique passwords).

Since this list is one of the go-to lists for the bad guys, we use it too. This means that many passwords that seem clever or obscure fail our test because someone else thought up the same thing.

Password tips:

• The longer your password, the less likely it is to be in the dictionary.
• Try combining multiple words mixed with numbers and symbols.

If you are interested in learning more about password security and cracking, this arstechnica article is a pretty good introduction: ​Anatomy of a hack: How crackers ransack passwords like “qeadzcwrsfxv1331”.