Longer Passcodes = Better Security

Longer passwords are more secure, for a variety of reasons. But just take a brute force attack, which is basically a term for a computer trying to guess your passcode in a short amount of time. Just how long would it take? A brute force attack could crack a four-digit passcode in about seven minutes. But that number jumps exponentially when you increase the length.

That same attack might take 72 years to crack a six-digit passcode. But if you have an alphanumeric password longer than seven characters, that timeline jumps out to an astounding 2,700 years. With a rise in the number of sophisticated iPhone hacking tools out there, brute force attacks like these aren’t just a theoretical concept anymore either.