If you want to protect your online accounts from hackers, rule number one is to select strong, hard to guess passwords.
However, a recent report by the guys at Internet security firm Impervia, suggests that Internet users are still relying on the same kind of predictable passwords that they used a decade ago.
Password strength
Impervia released a list of the top 20 passwords, which were found when RockYou.com was hacked last month. According to Impervia, these were strikingly similar to the passwords used on Hotmail.com, when that too was breached almost 20 years ago!
Starting with the most commonly used, the 20 most popular passwords were:
- 123456
- 12345
- 123456789
- Password
- iloveyou
- princess
- rockyou
- 1234567
- 12345678
- abc123
- Nicole
- Daniel
- babygirl
- monkey
- Jessica
- Lovely
- michael
- Ashley
- 654321
- Qwerty
It’s clear for all to see that many people are still using predictable strings of letters and numbers and names as their passwords. Obviously, if you are using ANY of these, it’s a good idea to change it for something stronger; to avoid the risk of a brute force attack.
Password tips
A pdf on the Impervia website gives some more detail AND some good advice on how to build strong, memorable, passwords.
Image credit: The English Guy
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This is something I have harped on people about forever. I have my own script to create passwords, and I never use anything memorable. If it is memorable, it is guessable!
It reminds me of an article I wrote a while back about changing you Twitter password to avoid trouble. Not spamming, but I think it may be useful food for thought:
http://twitterforbusinesstwitterforfriends.com/2009/11/change-your-twitter-password/
I used to be a victim of choosing easy to guess passwords, thank god I wasn’t “hacked” or had my passwords guessed.
I actually use a great tool by Steve Gibson at GRC.com now to create long passwords for my accounts, it’s also a great tool to get great passwords to use for securing wireless networks.
There needs to be more education regarding online security, in my opinion.