Passphrase

How it works

• Length beats complexity: four or five random words are stronger than one word with a few symbols.
• Use one for your password manager and your email, and nowhere else.
• A password manager creates and fills unique passwords for everything else.

What can go wrong (example scenario)

A four-person clinic's owner used Summer2024! for her email, her bank and the practice software. One breach at an unrelated website put that password on a list. The attacker tried it everywhere, and it worked everywhere.

How WILDCARD handles it

Password Manager gives each person a vault secured by one strong passphrase and MFA. The vault generates and fills unique passwords for every site, so the only thing anyone memorizes is the phrase.

• A dental office staff member picks a passphrase for the vault and stops reusing one password across sites.
• A law firm requires 20-character passphrases on laptops that hold client files.
• A contractor's Wi-Fi password becomes four random words that crews can read from a card instead of a sticky note.

Example scenario: A small bakery's owner moved from a single reused password to a vault with a passphrase. Three months later, a breach at a supplier's portal leaked her old password. It no longer opened anything, because every account now had its own random password behind the vault.

A question owners ask

Isn't a long passphrase annoying to type?

You type it a couple of times a day, to unlock the vault and the computer. Everything else is filled in automatically. It ends up being less typing overall.