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NIST proposes barring some of the most nonsensical password rules (arstechnica.com)

submitted 1 month ago by Amicitas to c/technology

179 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Here is the text of the NIST sp800-63b Digital Identity Guidelines.

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[–] cybersandwich 10 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I think if you do allow 8 character passwords the only stipulation is that you check it against known compromised password lists. Again, pretty reasonable.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

~~That stipulation goes rather close to #5, even not being a composition rule.~~ EDIT: see below.

I think that a better approach is to follow the recommended min length (15 chars), unless there are good reasons to lower it and you're reasonably sure that your delay between failed password attempts works flawlessly.

EDIT: as I was re-reading the original, I found the relevant excerpt:

If the CSP [credential service provider] disallows a chosen password because it is on a blocklist of commonly used, expected, or compromised values (see Sec. 3.1.1.2), the subscriber SHALL be required to choose a different password. Other complexity requirements for passwords SHALL NOT be imposed. A rationale for this is presented in Appendix A, Strength of Passwords.

So they are requiring CSPs to do what you said, and check it against a list of compromised passwords. However they aren't associating it with password length; on that, the Appendix 2 basically says that min length depends on the threat model being addressed; as in, if it's just some muppet trying passwords online versus trying it offline.