They refer to it as a “Memorized Secret“.
The appendix, “Strength of Memorized Secrets” is informative rather than a guideline, but I would recommend quoting it too in such discussions:
> composition rules, which require the user to choose passwords constructed using a mix of character types, such as at least one digit, uppercase letter, and symbol. However, analyses of breached password databases reveal that the benefit of such rules is not nearly as significant as initially thought… although the impact on usability and memorability is severe
There’s also this great quote:
Verifiers SHOULD NOT impose other composition rules (e.g., requiring mixtures of different character types or prohibiting consecutively repeated characters) for memorized secrets. Verifiers SHOULD NOT require memorized secrets to be changed arbitrarily (e.g., periodically).
There’s other great stuff in there as well like that you should allow users to “paste” passwords and potential passwords should be checked against a list of known bad ones.
Even the head of information security tried changing this and failed to get the change through.
Why can I accept it? I constantly see colleagues sharing passwords and constantly have to say "please don't" when they try to share their password with me. While forcing people to change their passwords doesn't eliminate the underlying problem, it does limit the scope of the damage.
For the next 10 years, his password was a particular insulting phrase directed at the IT guys, followed by a number that would increment each time he had to change it. Got into the hundreds before he left the company.
It also interferes with password managers and secure keys. Opens a phishing vector. Generally I could enumerate how bad it is and run out of ink here. (And it's a screen.)
Of course there's TouchID and Windows hello but they don't work if your laptop is closed in a dock. Or in my case a Mac mini at home.
This is why I still stick to the truly random sorry password, I have no issues remembering arbitrary strings for some reason :)
Luckily my work still allows 10-char with specials or passphrases of 16 and longer without.
Also, the incessant screen locking really annoys me, every time I step away for a coffee my PC is locked again, and this is also at home where my environment is completely secure and I'm the only one living there. I actually work in security but sometimes there is just no reason and it becomes just a barrier.
In the past I used an app to jiggle the mouse every once in a while but that doesn't work anymore. I now made a digispark that does the same in hardware.
Those are rookie numbers!
In all serious, my point is roughly that typing Sp3c1al_(h4racTer_p@ssw0rd$ is like O(n) whereas typing passphrases is like O(log n). Once you hit a certain length, pass phrases start pulling ahead in ease-of-use.
We're already constantly maintaining muscle memory just by typing normal words every day. With muscle memory for special character passwords, you have to start over from scratch every time you have to change one.
In other words, imagine I flipped over a flashcard with a new passphrase on it consisting of lowercase English words, and asked you to type it. Now imagine I flip over a flashcard with a new, special character password. How many more times do you think you'd have to reference the flashcard with the special character password while typing it out and developing the muscle memory over the flashcard with the passphrase?
> Verifiers SHOULD NOT impose other composition rules (e.g., requiring mixtures of different character types or prohibiting consecutively repeated characters) for memorized secrets. Verifiers SHOULD NOT require memorized secrets to be changed arbitrarily (e.g., periodically). However, verifiers SHALL force a change if there is evidence of compromise of the authenticator.
After pointing to the NIST standards (and two other references) saying that that reduced security and saying "we're not prepared to reduce our security" they backed off.
> Verifiers SHOULD NOT require memorized secrets to be changed arbitrarily (e.g., periodically). However, verifiers SHALL force a change if there is evidence of compromise of the authenticator.
[1]: https://pages.nist.gov/800-63-3/sp800-63b.html#memsecretver
For context, I remember the contract first came back, and we redlined it saying we're not gonna do password expiration and explained why. It then came back with another draft and they said "no, this is our policy, you definitely need to do password expiration" so I threw these references together and expanded my explanation. It was a bunch of business/lawyer types, so I threw microsoft in there as I assume they're better known to non-technical people and the other two references are obviously more salient to technical people.
As a side-note I think this was _after_ they had their very well publicized security breach, and I would have hoped that they had taken a look at their security and updated their policies but I guess that wasn't the case. I don't know whether they ended up removing it from their contracts going forward or just made an exception for our one. The cynical part of me says the latter (it's a big firm, and we're not a particularly big one) but I can hope.
I also recently read an audit for another third party we were evaluating to work with. I raised it as a non-blocking concern saying they're not following modern password standards, and I think if everyone does that these companies will start to update their policies but for now it's fairly common at least in my industry.
[EDIT] I went looking for what I actually said to them, and it was "as per UK/US government and Microsoft password guidelines, we will not agree to this, and would prefer if you didn't do it as well.". So I guess I was a bit exasperated with them at the time :)
[0] https://pages.nist.gov/800-63-3/sp800-63b.html#memsecretver
[1] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-gb/archive/blogs/secguide/sec...
[2] https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/collection/passwords/updating-your-a...
Tip for those in settings with compliance reviews and cybersecurity insurance: get your PCI DSS, SOX, and other auditors, and cybersecurity insurance underwriter on board with these standards as well, with written statements. Then if Big Customer Co. pushes back after you say, "we're not prepared to reduce our security", ask them in a friendly way to hold an N-way meeting between their auditors and insurance underwriter, and your auditors and insurance underwriter.
This gets them to switch off their demand. Every. Time. If they don't back off on their own, their auditors and/or insurance underwriter makes them back off. I've yet to have such a Big Customer Co. push it to the point of asking more than one of their own auditors, though. Usually it is someone not in auditing and insurance underwriting blithely following outdated policies written in the Stone Age that still need updating, and most are grateful for the updated clarification.
You have to get out ahead of the business risk though for this to work: you need to properly socialize the delay this puts on the deal "while auditors and insurers sort out the risk". This is where soft skills shine.
This approach will also take care of the response user patrakov gave ("NIST is an American institute, and we are a Japanese company, we have our own standards that differ, and must follow them"), once it gets to the insurance underwriters talking it over on how to divvy up the risk and amend their policies if necessary.
It’s still messy at this time, but if it is important enough to you, then sometimes it can be obtained. Most of my clients aren’t that doctrinaire over the expiration part though and are still comfortable making everyone change every 90 days, and with some enterprises they don’t care because they have FIDO2/U2F or similar authN infrastructures and corresponding authZ improvements on their roadmaps within the next 3-5 years anyways that do away with most passwords in their environments.
Agreed, huge thanks to NIST for the sane password policy recommendations. While it is still an uphill fight to bring sanity into this mess, being able to quote NIST and say we're following their recommendation has been very helpful.
https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/collection/passwords/updating-your-a...