It’s national password day so let’s have a frank discussion about passwords, shall we?
Look, we get it… we really do!
It’s annoying trying to remember what seems like a million different passwords right?
It’s just so much easier to use the same one, again and again, isn’t it? Wouldn’t it be better just to have one simple password?
I mean, how are we meant to remember where the symbol and capital letter is meant to go anyway?
But there’s a problem here. Apart from your password being incredibly unsafe by not using a mix of alphanumeric characters and special characters, the bigger issue is that far too many of us are still using a single simple password.
In 2018, the top 25 most commonly used passwords were:
- 123456
- password
- 123456789
- 12345678
- 12345
- 111111
- 1234567
- sunshine
- qwerty
- iloveyou
- princess
- admin
- welcome
- 666666
- abc123
- football
- 123123
- monkey
- 654321
- !@#$%^&*
- charlie
- aa123456
- donald
- password1
- qwerty123
These 25 passwords make up more than 10% of all passwords.
Do you see the problem? They’re far too easy for cybercriminals to crack and too many of us are still protecting ourselves from the dangers of cybercrime with childlike password keys.
Think what your passwords protect. Everything from your emails to your banking information.
Surely, it’s common sense just to make it a good one!
Some extremely large companies have been known to have data breaches (mentioning no names for legal reasons!) which have resulted in huge lists of personal data including account details have been leaked on to the public internet.
Often, these lists of account details can be found for sale on the dark web where cybercriminals purchase them.
Just imagine a random list of 100 email addresses and if that list of the 25 most common passwords makes up 10% of all passwords, then how many of those 100 email addresses might be hacked into just by trying the most commonly used ones?
So…. we have two very important tips:
1. Make a strong password that you don’t share with anyone else
2. Check that you’re not on any leaked data breaches by visiting https://haveibeenpwned.com/
