What is the difference between a password and a passphrase?

Passwords and passphrases serve the same purpose in protecting your account.  Passwords are usually shorter and require complexity such as adding a combination of upper case letters, lower case letters, numbers and special characters.   With the growth of computing power, these shorter combinations of characters that we call "passwords" are easier to crack.  

Using a passphrase increases the number of characters in the password to the point that modern computing processing power cannot crack them within a reasonable amount of time.  In order for humans to be able to remember these much longer passwords, we can create groups of words for our longer "passwords".   IAS does not require any complexity but you are welcome to add it in your passphrase. Yes, spaces are allowed in passphrases. Avoid popular phrases and quotes.

Examples of good passphrases:   ** Please do not use any of these for your passphrase! **

  • Six silly swans swoon 4 U
  • balloons are #1 for horses
  • ThymeAndTimeAgain100%
  • s00nweeatC@ke&icecream
  • thqckbrwnfxjmpdvrthlzyfrg
    (It's "the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy frog" without vowels or spaces)

Notes:
Complexity = A mixture of upper case letters, lower case letters, numbers and special characters