Q: How often should I replace a generated password?

If you are using a unique, high-entropy generated password for an account, you never need to change it periodically. Modern security standards (like NIST 800-63B) explicitly advise against 90-day password rotation. You only need to change a generated password if you have reason to believe the account was compromised, if the website announces a data breach, or if you accidentally pasted the password into an insecure location. Otherwise, a strong generated password remains mathematically secure indefinitely.

Question 1

Scenario 1: Enterprise Active Directory Administration

Accepted Answer

An IT administrator at a corporation with 5,000 employees needs to provision temporary passwords for 200 new hires. Relying on human creation (like "Welcome2024!") guarantees that attackers will immediately compromise these accounts via password spraying. Instead, the admin uses a bulk password generator script utilizing a CSPRNG to output 200 unique, 16-character alphanumeric strings. These are distributed securely to the new hires, who are forced to change them upon first login. The generated passwords ensure the accounts are mathematically secure during the vulnerable onboarding window.

Question 2

Scenario 2: Setting Up a Password Manager

Accepted Answer

A 35-year-old accountant decides to secure their digital life using a password manager. They need a "Master Password" to encrypt the vault. Because this password must be typed manually on different devices and memorized, a 20-character random string is impractical. The accountant uses a passphrase generator to select six random words from the EFF wordlist: fabric-velvet-ocean-cactus-window-brave. This provides 77 bits of entropy—immune to offline dictionary attacks by modern GPUs—while remaining easily visualizable and memorable for the human brain.

Question 3

Scenario 3: API Key Generation for Software Development

Accepted Answer

A software developer is creating a connection between a web application and a backend database. This credential will be stored in a configuration file and never seen by a human. The developer uses a cryptographic generator to create a 64-character hexadecimal string (using only characters 0-9 and A-F). With a pool size of 16, $\log_2(16) = 4$ bits per character. A 64-character string yields exactly 256 bits of entropy. This aligns perfectly with AES-256 encryption standards, ensuring the database connection is secure against any conceivable brute-force attack, including theoretical future quantum computing attacks.

Question 4

Can a generated password be hacked or cracked?

Accepted Answer

Yes, theoretically, any password can be cracked given enough time. However, a properly generated password of sufficient length (e.g., 16+ random characters) possesses so much mathematical entropy that it would take the most powerful supercomputers millions of years to guess it via brute force. Practically speaking, attackers do not bother trying to brute-force high-entropy passwords; they will instead attempt to steal it via phishing, malware, or exploiting a vulnerability in the website itself.

Question 5

How does a computer generate "true" randomness if it is a machine?

Accepted Answer

Computers cannot produce true randomness through code alone. To achieve cryptographically secure randomness, the operating system's kernel collects "environmental noise" from physical hardware events. This includes the exact microsecond timing of your keystrokes, the movements of your mouse, the rotational speed of disk drives, and microscopic thermal fluctuations in the CPU. This physical, unpredictable data is pooled together to create a starting "seed" for the mathematical generator.

Question 6

Is it safe to use browser-based password generators?

Accepted Answer

Generally, yes, provided you are using a reputable, well-known tool. Modern browser-based generators use JavaScript (specifically the Web Crypto API) to generate the password locally on your machine. The text is never sent over the internet to the website's server. However, to be absolutely safe against malicious websites that might secretly log your keystrokes or clipboard, it is best practice to use the generator built directly into your dedicated password manager app or browser extension.

Question 7

What is the difference between a password and a passphrase?

Accepted Answer

A password is typically a single string of random characters, numbers, and symbols with no linguistic meaning (e.g., x$9LpQ2!). A passphrase is a sequence of actual dictionary words separated by spaces or hyphens (e.g., coffee-mountain-guitar-sunrise). Passphrases are specifically designed to be easily memorized and typed by humans while maintaining high entropy by relying on the mathematical combination of thousands of possible dictionary words rather than individual letters.

Question 8

Why do some websites reject highly secure, generated passwords?

Accepted Answer

Many older websites operate on outdated legacy codebases that enforce strict, arbitrary password rules. They may restrict passwords to a maximum of 12 characters, forbid the use of certain symbols (like < or &) to prevent SQL injection attacks, or fail to recognize spaces. When a website rejects a generated password, you must adjust the generator's settings to match the site's restrictive parameters, usually by disabling special characters or shortening the length.

Question 9

How often should I replace a generated password?

Accepted Answer

If you are using a unique, high-entropy generated password for an account, you never need to change it periodically. Modern security standards (like NIST 800-63B) explicitly advise against 90-day password rotation. You only need to change a generated password if you have reason to believe the account was compromised, if the website announces a data breach, or if you accidentally pasted the password into an insecure location. Otherwise, a strong generated password remains mathematically secure indefinitely.

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