Abstract: An improved method for password validation comprising the steps of identifying bad passwords having one or more characters; computing a frequency of occurrence of bad password characters; computing a probability of occurrence T of the bad password characters within the bad passwords based upon the computed frequency of occurrence; identifying a proposed password having one or more characters; and comparing the proposed password characters with the probability of occurrence T of the bad password characters. The method further comprises the steps of establishing a validation threshold and validating the proposed password based upon the correspondence between (i) a value, BAp, reflecting the relationship between the probability of occurrence T of bad password characters within bad passwords and the proposed password characters and (ii) an established validation threshold. A Markov model is use to compute the probability of occurrence. The present invention also includes an improved password validation system.