Even in this day and age, when hacking has gotten extremely well, people still take securing their personal accounts not that seriously and have the passwords like “password123”, “(country name)1” and similar to these very predictable ones. These passwords are not exactly secure and the account can get hacked easily.
Even though the people do it, they should be made aware of the fact that this practice can get their accounts hacked and this should be done by the websites that these people opt to make accounts on. However, researchers have proven that this is not the case, even with the leading tech giants like Amazon, Facebook, Reddit, Google and Wikipedia.
Since 2007, Steve Furnell from the University of Plymouth has been tracking big websites and have been carrying out identical assessments in 2011 and 2014.
During his studies in 2018, he tested the workings of Reddit, Facebook, Wikipedia, Twitter, Microsoft live, Amazon, Yahoo, Google, Instagram and Netflix. It became evident that among all, Amazon did worse in this situation. Also, Yahoo and Wikipedia permitted even single character passwords.
However, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Google showed improvements since the study of 2014.
Steve is of the point of view that this loose security control by these big names is alarming in this age of mass cyber attacks happening all over the globe. But the good thing is that there is a rise in the practices of two-step verification and two-factor authentication for other sites.
This is a serious concern and people need to be more educated to stay protected from cyber theft while being oblivious of their own security as they opt for such easy and simple passwords.
Even though the people do it, they should be made aware of the fact that this practice can get their accounts hacked and this should be done by the websites that these people opt to make accounts on. However, researchers have proven that this is not the case, even with the leading tech giants like Amazon, Facebook, Reddit, Google and Wikipedia.
Since 2007, Steve Furnell from the University of Plymouth has been tracking big websites and have been carrying out identical assessments in 2011 and 2014.
During his studies in 2018, he tested the workings of Reddit, Facebook, Wikipedia, Twitter, Microsoft live, Amazon, Yahoo, Google, Instagram and Netflix. It became evident that among all, Amazon did worse in this situation. Also, Yahoo and Wikipedia permitted even single character passwords.
However, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Google showed improvements since the study of 2014.
Steve is of the point of view that this loose security control by these big names is alarming in this age of mass cyber attacks happening all over the globe. But the good thing is that there is a rise in the practices of two-step verification and two-factor authentication for other sites.
This is a serious concern and people need to be more educated to stay protected from cyber theft while being oblivious of their own security as they opt for such easy and simple passwords.
