Password advice like everything else in technology keeps changing because computers keep getting faster and smarter. Passwords at least 8 characters with a cap a small a number and a special character used to be recommended. Now we've moved to passphrases that are longer such as bluestrawberryspiders, Because the standard keyboard only has 47 keys with a cap and small for each. So there are 94 characters to search for each position in a password. This table shows relative time to crack passwords based on the number of characters. Mixing in caps, numbers and special characters is still a good idea. Passphrases are much easier for most of us to remember as well.