Some Web sites only allow alphanumeric characters (letters and numbers) in their passwords. This invites bad passwords, lowering security for everyone.

A 6-character password can now be breached in just seconds using brute force techniques in which a computer tries every possible combination of characters to work out the correct sequence.

A password expert has shown that passwords can be cracked by brute force four times faster than was previously thought possible. It's no magician's trick. Jeremi Gosney of the Stricture Consulting ...

For example, it will only take an hour for a hacker to find a ten-character password made up entirely of numbers. By increasing the number of characters to 14, it could take them up to a year.

The Hiver Systems recommended that passwords should not be fewer than eight characters, according to the latest study.

Starting this month, LastPass is now enforcing the 12-character master password requirement for all accounts.

For example, setting a minimum password length of 12 characters does not necessarily mean that all your users’ passwords will actually have 12 or more characters.

The limitation is in stark contrast to those found on services such as Gmail, which reportedly permits passwords as long as 200 characters or even Yahoo Mail, which allows 32-character passwords.

With regard to yesterday's item detailing Mac OS X's effective limitation of passwords to eight characters, several readers speculate that the problem may be more of a simple quirk than a true ...

We've talked before about using a longer passcode on your iPhone instead of a 4-digit pin, but as the tech blog Digital Inspiration points out, adding in accented characters adds yet another level ...