eli5: How does adding numbers or symbols to a password make it more secure? If those characters are already in the list of options a hacker has to try then wouldn’t having them or not be irrelevant?

Question

A hacker still has to try every combination when brute-forcing a password, don’t they? If my password was long enough why wouldn’t any type of characters be fine?

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Best answer given by /r/danceswithsteers below: [https://xkcd.com/936/](https://xkcd.com/936/)

In: Mathematics

Answer 1

Its more options. Like just characters would be ~26. with numbers its 10 more. With symbols its even more. That makes brute force harder, time longer. Its quite difference to have 26^n (n is the length) or to have 36^n