Nope. The number and type of characters make a big difference.
How big? Adding a symbol eliminates the possibility of a straight dictionary attack (using, literally, words from a dictionary. Adding a symbol, especially an unusual one, makes it much harder to crack even using rainbow tables (collections of alphanumeric combinations, only some of which include symbols).
How big a difference to length and character make?
How long would it take to crack my password: (Includes letters and numbers, no upper- or lower-case and no symbols)
Six Characters: 2.25 Billion Possible Combinations
- Cracking online using web app hitting a target site with one thousand guesses per second: 3.7 weeks.
- Cracking offline using high-powered servers or desktops (one hundred billion guesses/second): 0.0224 seconds
- Cracking offline, using massively parallel multiprocessing clusters or grid (one hundred trillion guesses per second: 0.0000224 seconds
Ten Characters: 3.76 Quadrillion Possible Combinations
- Cracking online using web app hitting a target site with one thousand guesses per second: 3.7 weeks.
- Cracking offline using high-powered servers or desktops (one hundred billion guesses/second): 10.45 hours
- Cracking offline, using massively parallel multiprocessing clusters or grid (one hundred trillion guesses per second: 37.61 seconds.
- Add a symbol, make the crack several orders of magnitude more difficult:
Six Characters: 7.6 trillion Possible Combinations
- Cracking online using web app hitting a target site with one thousand guesses per second: 2.4 centuries.
- Cracking offline using high-powered servers or desktops (one hundred billion guesses/second): 1.26 minutes
- Cracking offline, using massively parallel multiprocessing clusters or grid (one hundred trillion guesses per second: 0.0756 seconds
Ten Characters: Possible Combinations: 171.3 Xextillion (171,269,557,687,901,638,419; 1.71 x 1020)
- Cracking online using web app hitting a target site with one thousand guesses per second: 54.46 million centuries.
- Cracking offline using high-powered servers or desktops (one hundred billion guesses/second) 54.46 years
- Cracking offline, using massively parallel multiprocessing clusters or grid (one hundred trillion guesses per second: 2.83 weeks.
Take Steve’s advice: go for ten characters, then add a symbol.
By Kevin Fogarty, ITworld Jun 10, 2012 12:13 pm
