Passwords

As a security professional I strongly believe passwords is the single most important topic which is far more subtle than most folks realise.  Understanding the basics is vital and yet most people don’t.  I think one of the best ways to gain an appreciation of the subtleties is to discover how easy it can be to compromise a password.

Here are some links for those how want to get their head around the technicalities.

Good introductory article (Ars Technica keep coming up with good current articles on passwords)

https://arstechnica.com/security/2013/05/how-crackers-make-minced-meat-out-of-your-passwords/

There is of course a conference dedicated to password cracking

This has connections with the Password Hashing Competition (PHC) which is trying to improve things

https://password-hashing.net/

and last but not least, probably the most powerful password cracking software freely available

https://hashcat.net/oclhashcat-plus/