+A.3 Complexity

A.3 Complexity

Composition rules are commonly used in an attempt to increase the difficulty of guessing user-chosen passwords. However, research has shown that users respond in very predictable ways to the requirements imposed by composition rules [Policies]. For example, a user who might have chosen “password” as their password would be relatively likely to choose “Password1” if required to include an uppercase letter and a number or “Password1!” if a symbol is also required.

Users also express frustration when online services reject their attempts to create complex passwords. Many services reject passwords with spaces and various special characters. Characters that are not accepted are sometimes the result of an effort to avoid attacks that depend on those characters (e.g., SQL injection). However, an unhashed password would not be sent intact to a database, so such precautions are unnecessary. Users should also be able to include space characters to allow the use of phrases. Repeated space characters add little to the effective strength of passwords and may introduce usability issues (e.g., the undetected use of two spaces rather than one), so removing repeated spaces in typed passwords may be beneficial if initial verification fails.

Since users’ password choices are often predictable, attackers are likely to guess passwords that have previously proven successful. These include dictionary words and passwords from previous breaches, such as the “Password1!” example above. For this reason, passwords chosen by users should be compared against a blocklist of unacceptable passwords. This list should include passwords from previous breach corpuses, dictionary words used as passwords, and specific words (e.g., the name of the service itself) that users are likely to choose. Since a minimum length requirement will also govern the user’s choice of passwords, this dictionary only needs to include entries that meet that requirement. As noted in Sec. 3.1.1.2, it is not beneficial for the blocklist to be excessively large or comprehensive, since its primary purpose is to prevent the use of very common passwords that might be guessed in an online attack before throttling restrictions take effect. An excessively large blocklist will likely frustrate users who attempt to choose a memorable password.

Highly complex passwords introduce a new potential vulnerability: they are less likely to be memorable and more likely to be written down or stored electronically in an unsafe manner. While these practices are not necessarily vulnerable, some methods of recording such secrets will be. This is an additional motivation for not requiring excessively long or complex passwords.

1. Ħarsa ġenerali

Titlu Standard

1.1 Referenzi

1.2 Rekwiżiti identifikati

1.3 Regolamenti relatati

2. Rekwiżiti identifikati

Rekwiżiti
Sors Rekwiżit

3. Regolamenti relatati

Regolamenti
Sors Regolamentazzjoni
  • NIST -

    EN: Publications of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), U.S. Department of Commerce, https://www.nist.gov/, from their electronic versions (OSCAL; SP 800-63-4 from its HTML version, https://pages.nist.gov/800-63-4/). Works of NIST employees are not subject to copyright protection in the United States (17 U.S.C. § 105); the OSCAL content is dedicated to the public domain worldwide (CC0 1.0); outside the United States NIST grants the right to reprint its technical series publications in all formats (NIST copyright statement). Republished courtesy of the National Institute of Standards and Technology; each document names its citation. Divided into sections and converted into the GRCA format, the wording unchanged. Only the versions published by NIST are authoritative.

    DE: Veröffentlichungen des National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), U.S. Department of Commerce, https://www.nist.gov/, aus ihren elektronischen Fassungen (OSCAL; SP 800-63-4 aus ihrer HTML-Fassung, https://pages.nist.gov/800-63-4/). Werke von NIST-Beschäftigten sind in den USA urheberrechtlich nicht geschützt (17 U.S.C. § 105); die OSCAL-Inhalte sind weltweit gemeinfrei gestellt (CC0 1.0); außerhalb der USA räumt das NIST das Recht ein, seine Technical-Series-Publikationen in allen Formaten neu zu veröffentlichen (Copyright-Hinweis des NIST). „Republished courtesy of the National Institute of Standards and Technology“; jedes Dokument nennt seine Zitierangabe. In Abschnitte aufgeteilt und in das GRCA-Format umgewandelt, der Wortlaut unverändert. Maßgeblich sind allein die vom NIST veröffentlichten Fassungen.