The use of a mix of characters, numbers, and symbols in a password is called what?

• A. Password length
• B. Password entropy
• C. Character variety
• D. Password complexity

Answer: (D)

Mixing uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols increases the number of possible combinations for a password, making it harder to guess. That quality is described as password complexity. It matters beyond just how long the password is, because using a larger variety of character types expands the search space and boosts security. Entropy is a related idea—it's a measure of unpredictability—but the common term for the practice of requiring diverse character types is password complexity. A password can be long but lack variety, or shorter with a mix of types, and still differ in how secure it is; the emphasis here is on complexity.