Why is a password with both numbers and letters stronger than one with only letters? Attackers will include numbers in their brute force attempts anyway, so how does it make a difference?

Question

Why is a password with both numbers and letters stronger than one with only letters? Attackers will include numbers in their brute force attempts anyway, so how does it make a difference?

In: Technology

Answer 1

If the attacker knows that a given site doesn’t enforce passwords to have numbers and punctuations, then the attackers may as well just run a first round of brute force to pick up those passwords with only letters. So basically, by enforcing strong passwords a site can protect those who would otherwise picked a weak one, from their own stupidity.