We cannot stress enough on the fact that it is important to use passwords that aren’t easy to guess. Our online security lies in our hands. Keeping a simple and easy to guess password for your online accounts is akin to inviting trouble with arms wide open.
A report by the UK’s National Cyber Security Center (NCSC) has revealed a list of the world’s most hacked passwords. The #1 most hacked password on the list is indicative of the fact that we are not yet serious about our online privacy.
The data has been obtained from the passwords appearing on the Have I Been Pwned website that is run by the popular security expert Troy Hunt.
5 Most Hacked Passwords
It comes as a no brainer that “123456” is the world’s most hacked password and 23.2 million people are still using it. Next in the list is the extended version of the first password – “123456789.” 7.7 million users use this as the password to keep their accounts safe.
The third spot is grabbed by “qwerty” with 3.8 million users followed by “password” appearing 3.6 million times and the last password in the list of the world’s most hacked passwords is “111111” with 3.1 million using it.
Amongst the top 20 passwords in this list, you’ll find easy to guess phrases like “dragon,” “iloveyou” and “monkey.”
Other passwords included in this list are account owner’s name, football teams’ names and names of fictional characters and music bands.
Password Re-use Is An Issue
One of the major risks involved with these commonly used passwords is the fact that most people use the same password on multiple websites. If a hacker gets access to your ‘master’ password, it can easily access your accounts on different websites.
According to Dr. Ian Levy, NCSC Technical Director, “Password re-use is a major risk that can be avoided – nobody should protect sensitive data with something that can be guessed, like their first name, local football team or favourite band.”
Three Random Words: Perfect Password
Levy says that a combination of three random (memorable) words is the best password you can keep to avoid hackers from hacking your account by guessing the password.
“Using hard-to-guess passwords is a strong first step and we recommend combining three random but memorable words. Be creative and use words memorable to you, so people can’t guess your password.”
It’s high time that we start taking our online security seriously and start using difficult to guess passwords. If you’re using one of the passwords appearing in this list, change your password immediately.
Also Read: MIT’s New Data-Compression Technique Makes Computer Programs Faster
