I tried to change a Linux password to "sitonapotatopanotis" and got this error: BAD PASSWORD: is a palindrome
Why does this rule exist?
4 Answers
The manpage for pam_cracklib (responsible for password strength checking) does not specify why this is done:
The strength checks works in the following manner: at first the Cracklib routine is
called to check if the password is part of a dictionary; if this is not the case an
additional set of strength checks is done. These checks are:
Palindrome
Is the new password a palindrome?
However, it's not difficult to imagine that there are some password cracking softwares that try palindromes.
I would not recommend using such a password but it's up to you evaluate what security trade-offs you're comfortable with making (you could use sudo or root account to change the password and it will allow you to change it to whatever you want).
answered Mar 2, 2012 at 17:27
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2So if he added/subtracted one character the password would be fine? Mar 2, 2012 at 19:11
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11@DanH: Yes. If a cracking program is going to try "near palindromes", it pretty much has to try everything. Mar 2, 2012 at 20:11
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11It seems to me that a palindrome should be counted as valid if the first half counts as a valid password. (But that's nit-picking, of course). Mar 3, 2012 at 14:35
Because a 20-character palindromic password is only as secure as a 10-character password -- there's essentially no extra entropy in the last 10 characters. So you're getting a false sense of security from having a long password.
answered Mar 2, 2012 at 16:04
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11Might be wrong here, but the effective security still depends on how you attempt to crack such a password. Does the attacker know there is a limited character set being used? Do we know the password length?– slhckMar 2, 2012 at 16:18
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19
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1Hm, it certainly adds to password entropy. However, I certainly wouldn't recommend it. It all depends on how the password cracking software generates permutations. Mar 2, 2012 at 17:19
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13A palindromic password adds exactly one bit of entropy (is palindrome vs. is not palindrome). It is not "only as secure as a 10-character password", but it's much less secure than an 11 character one.– user35138Mar 2, 2012 at 17:49
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4I'd say
sitonapotatopanotisprobably significantly less entropic than a standard 10 letter password made out of English words. Grammatically correct palindormes are very rare. It would be about as secure if you made a palindrome out of 10 random charactersmwiovqfbzczbfqvoiwm, or if you just took words and made the palindrome part nonsensedoctorwormrowrotcod. Also it adds a little more than a bit of entropy (you could vary how you do the palindrome; e.g.,doctorwormrowrotcodordoctorwormmrowrotcodordoctorotcodwormmrowr, etc. But in general palindromes are a bad idea in pw. Mar 2, 2012 at 21:03
People are simply more likely to choose "racecar" as their password cause they like it. So those words are high up on all wordlists (which are used before any brute-forcing). And it's simpler to check against all palindromes than to maintain a list of palindromes in the password checking library.
Some passwords are great and some are really bad.
We use certain factors to judge the quality of a password. Like length or what different characters are used.
For some passwords, these factors become less relevant or not relevant at all.
Like, this is a great password:
v10H73nqMQPkbUvTLOPyKBg4KnkUjWgF
This one, not so much:
acbaacbacaabcabbbaaabcaccbbbaaac
Even though it has the same length, if the same password rules apply and you brute-force it, the second password will be tried a lot sooner than the first password.
Let's have a look at this one:
qwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnm123456
Now, we're rollin' with a serious password! Only that it's almost the worst possible password ever because all letters are used in the same pattern as they appear on a very popular keyboard type.
Someone might look at that password and think it's super awesome because he chooses it under false assumptions (length being most important for a password).
The same could be said for palindromes. First of all, they give a false feeling of security (as Mike notes) because their length is increased by simply duplicating all letters. But the real problem with them is that they are easy to remember and somewhat of a commodity.
answered Mar 2, 2012 at 18:33
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12-1 "v10H73nqMQPkbUvTLOPyKBg4KnkUjWgF" this is not a great password, it's an awful one, since you simply cannot remember it.– o0'.Mar 2, 2012 at 22:48
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3The only reason why that's a bad password is just because I mentioned it here and it is no longer secret. I only use randomly generated passwords combined with a single-sign-on solution. Mar 3, 2012 at 0:04
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2Version 10 has 73 new quotes. More quotes per knowledge-base under varyingly terse, low orders, pays you kindly, big growth for keen novices’ knowledge. Useful jobs wait going forward.– SynetechMar 3, 2012 at 5:12
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2@OliverSalzburg You don't have to remember the password; it's written on the Post-it attached to my monitor.– Ian BoydApr 14, 2012 at 18:20
The easy way to set trivial passwords, even if it's a single character, it is by using root user to set the password.
pam_cracklibcould answer this. I tried looking at themanpageand did a quick web search but no luck.amanaplanpanama,sitonapotatopanotis,tacocat<- this last one is a very frequent card in Exploding Kittens).