It’s Almost 2023 and Internet Users still haven’t Learned that their Passwords are Bad

You can’t escape it. Articles about the importance of creating and using a safe, secure password are EVERYWHERE.  Yet, so many people still insist on using “123456” as their password. You read that right, we’re not kidding.

Heads up! If you use other common passwords like “qwerty”, “guest”, or “123123” – this blog is for you!

Researchers from Cybernews and NordPass both released reports independently of each other this week that included data of what some of the most commonly used passwords are. This would typically be data that is a little harder to gather. Except much of the data regarding bad passwords can be tallied with a simple trip to the dark web – as this is where much of the data is being sold as it breached and stolen. We shouldn’t be surprised that user accounts were hacked and exposed when the password that was compromised was “admin”, though.

In Cybernews’ report, their list of bad, commonly used passwords was tabulated based off of 56 million breached or leaked passwords found on the dark web or hacker forums. The top 3 passwords they came across were “123456”, “root” and “guest”.

In the NordPass report, they organized their list by country and gender. The number one password used in their findings was – you guessed it – “password”.  However, because their list focused on location as a parameter, some of the other commonly used passwords in breached accounts included “Liverpool”, “Brasil” and “Hallo”.

NordPass also noted that many of the passwords in their findings were just a single, lower case word. For anyone who has even just a general knowledge of bad passwords, cracking this type of encryption might not even require something like a brute force attack. It was also noted that 16% of passwords were only 4 characters long, which is mind-blowing considering most passwords these days at least have length requirements of double that.

Don’t want that slow, heart-sinking feeling next time you read this type of post because you realize it’s directed towards you? Follow these tips to create a strong and secure password:

• Use at least 12 characters

• Use upper and lowercase letters, numbers, and special characters

• Avoid common words or phrases

• Avoid identifiable things like your name, street address or favorite number

• Don’t recycle old passwords

If creating a random, hard-to-guess password just isn’t your thing - use a password manager to create a strong password for you. Also, setting up two factor authentication is another great way to introduce another layer of security when logging in to one of your online accounts.

Don’t be one of 56 million other people whose information is on the dark web because they used the word “pickle” as a password. Be unique, stand out from the crowd, and challenge yourself to create a complex and challenging password that those pesky cybercriminals won’t be able to guess!

Story via Gizmodo