Diagonal passwords

picture of computer keyboard

If you’ve read about passwords to avoid and how to make great passwords, you’re probably pretty secure password-wise.

The gist of both of those posts was this: good passwords appear to be random from the perspective of a guessor, and bad passwords are anything but random (your name, your dog’s name, numbers from you driver’s licence, etc.).

Are diagonally-typed passwords good?

What about typing diagonally on one’s keyboard? Does that constitute a good password?

It sure can look like it. Here’s an example of an eight-character password typed diagonally: 1qsx4rgb. Most human observers would fail to see much of a pattern in that password. In other words, it looks random. But it’s not.

Password guesser’s know every trick in the book. It’s not that hard for them to design a program that tries out some (or all) of the more common diagonally-typed passwords. Keep away from them.

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