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Password Strength Testers Work For Important Accounts

Posted by timothy on from the my-credit-union's-just-fine-with-8-chars-all-alpha dept.

msm1267 writes "Many popular online services have started to deploy password strength meters, visual gauges that are often color-coded and indicate whether the password you've chosen is weak or strong based on the website's policy. The effectiveness of these meters in influencing users to choose stronger passwords had not been measured until recently. A paper released this week by researchers at the University of California Berkeley, University of British Columbia, and Microsoft provides details on the results of a couple of experiments examining how these meters influence computer users when they're creating passwords for sensitive accounts and for unimportant accounts."

2 of 129 comments (clear)

  1. Re:What's really needed... by msauve · · Score: 5, Funny

    Oh, yea. Obligatory Dilbert (better than XKCD in this case).

    --
    "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
  2. Re:What's really needed... by fostware · · Score: 5, Funny

    But all my passwords are "correcthorsestaplebattery"!

    --
    "We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. They get run over." - Aneurin Bevan