Keeper Security, makers of the popular password management and digital vault software used by firms and individuals alike, recently published a report about the research they conducted in 2016. As part of the study, the company scoured more than 10 million passwords that became public due to the several instances of data breaches reported in 2016. What they found out was stunning. In spite of several cases of cyberattacks, privacy concerns, and the impending threat of hackers accessing their data, people still seem to have a lackadaisical attitude towards cyber security.
The one thing that stands between your data being accessed by an unauthorized person is your password. However, most people seem to have a very casual approach towards choosing their passwords. According to Keeper Security, while there have been slight changes in the most common and frequently used passwords, they remain as easy to guess as ever. For example, more than 17 percent of the people had their passwords set as “123456.” What was worse was the fact that several websites allowed users to keep these passwords and had very poor password enforcement policies in place.
CEO of @keepersecurity explains to @vocativ why ‘password’ is still a terrible #password https://t.co/RY6YpjsMLu #passwordmanager
— Aaron Gessner (@aarongessner) January 13, 2017
An excerpt from the research study read as follows.
“Four of the top 10 passwords on the list – and seven of the top 15 – are six characters or shorter. This is stunning in light of the fact that, as we’ve reported, today’s brute-force cracking software and hardware can unscramble those passwords in seconds. Website operators that permit such flimsy protection are either reckless or lazy.”
Other vulnerable and easy to hack passwords included seemingly complex looking ones like “1q2w3e4r” and “123qwe”. While these may look difficult to crack at first sight, in reality, for dictionary based password crackers, it will only take a few more seconds to crack through these by looking for sequential key variations.
The list also included other complex looking passwords like “18atcskd2w” and “3rjs1la7qe,” which initially seemed to be misfits in a list that was supposed to contain common, unsafe passwords. However, these passwords are reportedly commonly used by when they set up dummy accounts on public email services for spam and phishing attacks. Keeper Security is also concerned about several email providers who are simply not doing enough to make their platforms harder to crack into and to stop them from being used to send out spam.
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In case you are still wondering, these are the 25 most common (and insecure) passwords being used today. Note that the top 25 passwords listed here constituted more than 50 percent of the 10 million passwords that Keeper Security analyzed.
- 123456
- 123456789
- Qwerty
- 12345678
- 111111
- 1234567890
- 1234567
- password
- 123123
- 987654321
- Qwertyuiop
- Mynoob
- 123321
- 666666
- 18atckd2w
- 7777777
- 1q2w3e4r
- 654321
- 555555
- 3rjs1la7qe
Commenting on the study, Darren Guccione, CEO and co-founder of Keeper Security said.
“We can criticize all we want about the chronic failure of users to employ strong passwords. After all, it’s in the user’s best interests to do so. But the bigger responsibility lies with website owners who fail to enforce the most basic password complexity policies. It isn’t hard to do, but the list makes it clear that many still don’t bother. While it’s important for users to be aware of risks, a sizable minority are never going to take the time or effort to protect themselves. IT administrators and website operators must do the job for them”.
In case you happen to use any of these seemingly simple looking passwords, you are at risk of having your online identity stolen and misused. We recommend you to change these as soon as possible. In case you are still confused about how to set secure passwords, here are a few tips.
- Use a variety of characters To create a secure password, make sure you use a combination of various numerical, uppercase, lowercase and special characters.
- Avoid dictionary terms Dictionary terms are commonly used passwords that can be easily guessed. Avoid commonly used passwords like the ones mentioned in the above list, and you should be safer.
- Use a password manager Password managers make it easy to keep track of multiple passwords and keep them safeguarded.
[Featured Image by Pixabay ]
