A study done by UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) found that millions of people are using easy-to-guess passwords. The analysis showed that 123456 is the most widely-used password on breached accounts. The NCSC suggested that people should string three random but memorable words together to use as a strong password. Based on the cyber-survey the top password was 123456 appearing in more than 23 million passwords followed by 123456789. The top five included qwerty, password and 1111111.
As for common names used in password, there is Ashley, Michael, Daniel, Jessica and Charlie. People used Liverpool and Chelsea when it comes to Premier League football teams in guessable passwords. Blink-182 topped the charts of music acts. People who use well-known words or names for a password put themselves people at risk of being hacked, said Dr Ian Levy, technical director of the NCSC. “Nobody should protect sensitive data with something that can be guessed, like their first name, local football team or favourite band,” he said.
The cyber-survey also quizzed people about security habits and fears. 42% of them expected to lose money to online fraud while 15% said they felt confident that they knew enough to protect themselves online. Fewer than half of those questioned used a separate, hard-to-guess password for their main email account.Security expert Troy Hunt, who maintains a database of hacked account data, said picking a good password was the “single biggest control” people had over their online security.
“We typically haven’t done a very good job of that either as individuals or as the organisations asking us to register with them,” he said. Letting people know which passwords were widely used should drive users to make better choices, he said.
