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# easy to guess
Microsoft is going to start banning your incredibly dumb passwords
The most common passwords like ’123456′ and ‘qwerty’ will no longer be allowed under the new system.
NO MATTER WHAT happens, many people will continue to rely on easy to remember but weak passwords. Whether it’s down to convenience, laziness or other reasons, it’s something that crops up again and again and again.
Most companies try to fix this by imposing a minimum length, or making it more complex by adding at least one character that isn’t a letter or number.
Now if you’re using a Microsoft product like Outlook, Xbox, OneDrive or others, you won’t be able to use any passwords that are deemed weak or easy to guess.
If you’re relying on the likes of ’123456′, ‘password’ or ‘qwerty’ to protect your account, you’ll be told to “choose a password that’s harder for people to guess” (if you’re not, then you really should).
It will be using data gathered from millions of leaked passwords to help increase password security. The list is updated so if more bad passwords emerge among certain users, they will also be added.
The usual requirements of eight characters minimum still apply (but really, you should make it longer than that).
Even if you’re not using Microsoft’s accounts, it’s recommended you follow the same steps for all of your other accounts. The steps you need to take to come up with complex passwords isn’t that difficult provided you put in the necessary time and just meeting the minimum requirements isn’t a good idea either.
If you can, you should use a password manager to create and save randomly generated passwords for your accounts. Many of them are available for smartphones too so you can use them for mobile-only accounts like Snapchat.
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