Passwords Are Terrible (Surprising No One)

This is the result of a security audit:

More than a fifth of the passwords protecting network accounts at the US Department of the Interior—including Password1234, Password1234!, and ChangeItN0w!—were weak enough to be cracked using standard methods, a recently published security audit of the agency found.

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The results weren’t encouraging. In all, the auditors cracked 18,174—or 21 percent—­of the 85,944 cryptographic hashes they tested; 288 of the affected accounts had elevated privileges, and 362 of them belonged to senior …

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