Complex passwords are "dumb" and don't improve online safety, says UK cybersecurity chiefs

Complex passwords for things such as email, phones or computers are ‘dumb’ and easily forgotten, Britain’s new cybersecurity chiefs have claimed.

Using passwords made up of capital letters, numbers are unnecessary, they added.

“If somebody says use a 12-character password with numbers, upper and lowercase characters and special characters — it’s dumb,” said Ian Levy, technical director of the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC).

Levy added that companies should design more secure password systems rather than rely on individuals to regularly change their passwords.

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Even the chief executive of the NCSC, Ciaran Martin, said he struggled to remember all his passwords.

“We worked out what we were asking every British citizen to do is memorise a new 600-digit number every month. I don’t think I could do that. None of my best people could do that.”

Martin said that in an age of hacking, he wanted to make Britain “the hardest of targets” for criminal and hostile state attacks.

He was speaking as the Queen opened the new headquarters of the NCSC — an offshoot of GCHQ — in Victoria, central London.