“NIST Advocates Use of Longer Passwords to Improve Security”

The U.S. National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) has updated its guidelines in support of increasing the complexity of passwords through the creation of longer passwords. According to NIST Special Publication 800-33B titled, “Digital Identity Guidelines”, length strongly contributes to the strength of a password. Passwords that are shorter in length are more likely to be defeated by brute force attacks and dictionary attacks. KnowBe4, a security awareness vendor, surveyed IT professionals about their thoughts on NIST’s new revision of guidelines for passwords, the sufficiency of their current password policies, and multi-factor authentication (MFA). This article further discusses NIST’s new guidelines for password creation and the results of KnowBe4's survey. 

eWeek reports “NIST Advocates Use of Longer Passwords to Improve Security”