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Password Security

Password Policy Validator

Paste a password policy's text and check it against NIST SP 800-63B guidance.

Part of the Password Security Toolkit
1 warning1 info

Needs improvement — this policy includes practices NIST SP 800-63B specifically recommends against.

  • Minimum length"Minimum length 8"

    8 characters meets the 8-character floor. NIST's more recent guidance recommends 15+ when the password is the only authentication factor.

  • Rotation"Password expires every 30 days"

    Forced rotation every 30 days is explicitly recommended against by NIST SP 800-63B without evidence of compromise — arbitrary rotation tends to produce weaker, more predictable passwords (Summer2024! becomes Fall2024!) rather than stronger ones.

  • Breached-password checkThis text doesn't mention checking new passwords against known-breached lists — NIST SP 800-63B requires this. Absence here doesn't necessarily mean the real policy lacks it, just that this excerpt doesn't establish it.
  • Multi-factor authenticationThis text doesn't mention MFA — a widely recommended layered control beyond any password policy alone. Absence here doesn't necessarily mean the real policy lacks it.

What this tool does

Paste password policy statements as free text — from a wiki page, an RFP response, a security questionnaire, or just a couple of bullet points — and this recognizes common rules (minimum length, rotation, composition requirements, MFA, breach-checking, and more) and checks each one against NIST SP 800-63B, the current authoritative standard for memorized-secret policy.

This runs the opposite direction from Password Policy Generator: that tool starts from structured settings you choose and produces a policy document. This one starts from unstructured text — the kind you actually encounter when reviewing someone else's policy — and extracts what it can recognize.

How recognition works, and its real limits

Detection is pattern matching over common phrasings, not a language model — it recognizes "minimum length 8" and "passwords must be at least 8 characters long" as the same rule, but unusual wording can slip past it entirely. Anything not recognized is listed under Not recognized rather than silently dropped, so it's clear what the tool actually processed versus what it skipped.

The Not addressed by this text section works differently — it flags NIST requirements (breach-checking specifically) and widely recommended controls (MFA) that this excerpt never mentions at all. That's a real gap in what you pasted, not necessarily a gap in the actual policy — a short excerpt might simply not include every rule the real policy has.

Why the verdict can flag things that sound reasonable

Mandatory rotation and required character composition are the two most common surprises — both sound like obviously good security practice, and both are specifically recommended against by current NIST guidance. Forced rotation on a fixed schedule tends to produce predictable, related passwords rather than stronger ones, and mandatory composition rules push toward predictable patterns (a capital first letter, a symbol at the end) without meaningfully increasing real entropy. Neither recommendation is new or obscure — 800-63B has said this since its 2017 revision — but plenty of real policies still haven't caught up.

Try it yourself

Password Policy Generator is the tool to reach for once you know what a policy should say — pick settings and get a ready-to-adopt document plus the same NIST alignment check, generated instead of parsed.

FAQ

Is my pasted policy text sent anywhere?

No — parsing and analysis both run entirely in your browser.

Why didn't this recognize a rule I know is in the text?

The detector list covers common phrasings for the rules people paste most — length, rotation, composition, history, MFA, breach/common-password checking, lockout, and paste behavior. A rule phrased unusually, or one outside that list entirely (like password expiration warnings or account-sharing policy), won't be recognized. Check the Not recognized section to see exactly what was skipped.

The tool says my policy is missing MFA, but I know MFA is required elsewhere in our docs — is that wrong?

Not wrong, just scoped to what you pasted — the Not addressed by this text section is explicit that it's reporting what this specific excerpt doesn't establish, not a claim about your organization's actual, complete policy.

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