A slew of recent research has once again revealed that many of us are still pretty terrible when it comes to creating a strong password.
This includes a new report from Password manager Nordpass, which examined a database of more than 3 terabytes of compromised passwords covering users from 30 countries in order to uncover Top 200 passwords (Opens in a new tab)and order entries by the number of cases found, how easy it is to hack, as well as popularity by country and, where applicable, gender.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, NordPass found “Password” remains the top choice, with “12345” ranking second worldwide.
Weak password trends
The rest of the list consists largely of other variants of letters and numbers not randomly glued together, with “quertyuiop” (the top row of most English-language keyboards), ranking 36th globally.
Direct comparisons of Nordpass data show that no one gender is more security conscious than the other, they simply make bad choices differently.
For example, when comparing the top 10 passwords in the UK, males largely choose football team names (“Liverpool”, “Arsenal” and “Chelsea” ranked fifth, sixth and eighth respectively), while women choose names (” Charlie”, number three), places (“London”, number seven), or other distant names (“chocolate” and “monkey”, eighth and ninth).
sporadic study (Opens in a new tab) Password manager Specops Software, which analyzes more than 800 million compromised passwords, also reveals that the ongoing FIFA World Cup affects password choices, as users choose international team names, former and current players, and other related but common terms.
For example, over 1.3 million instances of the word “USA” as a password have been recorded, while Harry Kane’s “kane” has appeared more than 133,000 times – and even the word “soccer” has appeared more than 140,000 times.
Looking at Specops data with Nordpass’s gender gap in mind may offer insight into the password choices made, mainly, by male users.
The Nordpass report also covers, 9to5Google (Opens in a new tab) I found that people resorted to using the phone manufacturer’s name for its password.
Right now, “samsung” is the 78th most common password in the world, and “googledummy” is the 145th. A spelling problem for the sheer number of people who swear by the best androidAnd the Samsung And the Iphone Abroad.
Keep all of your data safe
If you can pick your password from a dictionary, atlas, or other reference book, or read it from a keyboard, it’s a bad word, as it will only take a few seconds, minutes, or hours for a threat actor to crack it, giving them unfettered access. to sensitive data.
Passwords should be unique to you, if not completely random by file password generator And store it in a reputable manager.
Consumers should also consider the latest biometric authentication standards passkeyscurrently built into Apple devices, and implemented for other platforms by The Google And the 1 password. At the time of writing, these alternatives are in open beta and are scheduled to arrive in 2023, respectively.
While Radar Pro Technology Readers may be less likely to make common mistakes when securing their companies’ tech stack, and this raises uncomfortable questions about consumer security habits, and how this might affect the passwords employees choose for themselves when presented with a choice.
Organizations should consider, too Multi-factor authentication As part of a Zero confidence Security strategy, completely get rid of passwords while ensuring security.