Why passphrases are better than passwords

I’ve been making the case for using passphrases instead of passwords for year, especially in our press releases about our Worst Passwords lists.

Making a strong password can be hard. Experts recommend making them long, adding alphanumeric characters, upper and lower cases, special characters, and more. These kinds of “good” passwords end up being very hard to recall correctly.

Meanwhile, a good passphrase consisting of several words with spaces or dashes in between (like “Garage-city-park-where” or “eat-cake-every-eighth” is stronger than most gobbledygook passwords with lots of random characters, and passphrases are far easier to remember.

But it turns out one of my favorite nerdy comics, XKCD, has made the case better than I ever did: