Knowing how weakly and unimaginatively people come out with passwords is one way to pat our own backs about the passwords we employ.
Replacing e with 3 and o with 0 is an old trick and hackers know it too. Before you realize it, your password is cracked and your personal information is no longer yours alone.
It is prudent to come with random passwords that hackers may not find it easy to crack. Try not to associate your passwords with the names of your spouse, children, cities, interests and you know the trend.
Bigger the password length, better it is. What is the optimum length you might ask? I would prefer to go with anywhere over ten characters.
And every account that you own must have a different password. Do not use the same password in every account you own. If you lose your password to a hacker, consider all your valuables that is stored across the internet-scape is at the mercy of hackers.
Now, enough of my 2 cents on how passwords are to be framed and maintained. The past year, 2014 saw a repeat performance of 2013. Most of the common passwords were almost similar to that of the previous year. People are just not reading articles(25 Worst Passwords of 2013) to find out if their password is listed among the weak ones.
The information on worst passwords is released by SplashData every year. They have analyzed close to 3 million leaked passwords on the internet and the analysis has mimicked the year 2013 in retaining the top two common passwords from the previous year – 123456 and password.
According to SplashData, the passwords that were analyzed for the year 2014 were from North America and Western Europe. The passwords stolen from Russia which topped the country list were not considered.
“Passwords based on simple patterns on your keyboard remain popular despite how weak they are,” said Morgan Slain, CEO of SplashData. “Any password using numbers alone should be avoided, especially sequences. As more websites require stronger passwords or combinations of letters and numbers, longer keyboard patterns are becoming common passwords, and they are still not secure.”
It was found that a number of users came up with their favorite teams such as steelers, yankees and eagles as their password. Some opted for their birth year while the others keyed in the first names of themselves or their near and dear ones – michael, jennifer, jordan and thomas among others.
Here are the top 25 worst passwords for the year 2014:
1. 123456 (Unchanged from 2013)
2. password (Unchanged)
3. 12345 (Up 17)
4. 12345678 (Down 1)
5. qwerty (Down 1)
6. 234567890 (Unchanged)
7. 1234 (Up 9)
8. baseball (New)
9. dragon (New)
10. football (New)
11. 1234567 (Down 4)
12. monkey (Up 5)
13. letmein (Up 1)
14. abc123 (Down 9)
15. 111111 (Down 8)
16. mustang (New)
17. access (New)
18. shadow (Unchanged)
19. master (New)
20. michael (New)
21. superman (New)
22. 696969 (New)
23. 123123 (Down 12)
24. batman (New)
25. trustno1 (Down 1)
Is yours on it?
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