If we asked you what your password was, what are the odds that you would say the word “password” itself? While you may be understandably hesitant to reveal your password to anyone that asks, chances are that many of you would be embarrassed by the accuracy of our statement. That’s because “password” ended up being the most popular password based on NordPass’s recently published list of the top 200 passwords that are currently being used.
Just under 5 million instances of “password” being used were noted in this report. Numerical sequences such as the numbers 1 through 6 or more were also used fairly frequently with all things having been considered and taken into account. Another popular phrase was “guest” as well as “qwerty”, neither of which are a whole lot better than what has already been mentioned.
With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that passwords like these can make account holders more susceptible to data theft than might have been the case otherwise. Such passwords can be cracked in under a second if brute force methods are used, so it is truly indicative of the sorry state of cybersecurity that they continue being utilized.
Some other popular words used were “football”, “batman” as well as the popular football club “Liverpool”. None of these are appropriate because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up exposing users to a wide array of account hacks that they would struggle to resolve.
In order for a password to be truly robust, it needs to combine numerals as well as alphabets, and throwing a unique character such as an @ sign or an exclamation mark would also prove useful. This can make the passwords harder to brute force, although they can still be cracked with enough time. Adding another layer of security with two factor authentication is now crucial if users want to keep their accounts secure. They can make it less of an issue if the password ends up in the hands of malicious actors.
Read next: What Is Synthetic Identity Theft and Why Are Mostly The Children Victims of It?
Just under 5 million instances of “password” being used were noted in this report. Numerical sequences such as the numbers 1 through 6 or more were also used fairly frequently with all things having been considered and taken into account. Another popular phrase was “guest” as well as “qwerty”, neither of which are a whole lot better than what has already been mentioned.
With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that passwords like these can make account holders more susceptible to data theft than might have been the case otherwise. Such passwords can be cracked in under a second if brute force methods are used, so it is truly indicative of the sorry state of cybersecurity that they continue being utilized.
Some other popular words used were “football”, “batman” as well as the popular football club “Liverpool”. None of these are appropriate because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up exposing users to a wide array of account hacks that they would struggle to resolve.
In order for a password to be truly robust, it needs to combine numerals as well as alphabets, and throwing a unique character such as an @ sign or an exclamation mark would also prove useful. This can make the passwords harder to brute force, although they can still be cracked with enough time. Adding another layer of security with two factor authentication is now crucial if users want to keep their accounts secure. They can make it less of an issue if the password ends up in the hands of malicious actors.
Read next: What Is Synthetic Identity Theft and Why Are Mostly The Children Victims of It?
