There’s a new theory around password security worth sharing.

South Pacific pision personnel enjoyed a recent IT security training session where we learnt that the old way of making passwords – choose a word, substitute some letters for numbers or symbols, 8 characters minimum – could be hacked by ‘brute force’ in as little as 1.8 seconds.

The new recommendation in IT security is to create what they call “passphrases” which are a minimum of 12 characters (preferably more) and made up of a random combination of unexpected words – not a sentence – that only you would remember.

An added bonus of this “passphrase” solution is that you don’t have to change your passwords as frequently. A recent In The Black article suggests that changing passwords frequently is flawed, “it encourages users to choose shorter and simpler passwords that can be altered with relatively small changes”.

Given the new mandatory data breach notification law, it might be time to trash your password and adopt the passphrase!

Photo credit: Shutterstock – Ruslan Grumble