title: Reference - Password Validation
body: <p>Quite often, questions (especially those tagged <a href="/questions/tagged/regex" class="post-tag" title="show questions tagged &#39;regex&#39;" rel="tag">regex</a>) ask for ways to <em>validate</em> passwords. It seems users typically seek password validation methods that consist of ensuring a password contains specific characters, matches a specific pattern and/or obeys a minimum character count. This post is meant to help users find appropriate methods for password validation without greatly decreasing security.</p>
  
  <p>So the question is: How should one <strong>properly</strong> validate passwords?</p>