According to a new study by Cybernews research team, there's a serious security problem in many passwords, as 94% of the passwords are reused or duplicated, while only 6% are unique. Most people have the most common passwords like ‘admin’ or ‘123456', and many of the passwords just have eight characters with numbers or letters. These kinds of weak and repeated passwords make users very vulnerable to cyberattacks, especially if two-factor authentication isn't used.
For the study, the researchers analyzed 19 billion leaked passwords and 200 major security breaches like SOCRadar.io. leak and the Snowflake breach. The study found that 4% of 727 million passwords are ‘1234’ while 338 million passwords are just ‘123456’. 56 million of the passwords were just ‘password’, while 53 million used ‘admin’. Ana was the most common name used in 178.8 million passwords and makes up about 8% of all passwords. There were also some positive words which were commonly used like love (87 million), sun (34 million), dream (6.1 million), and freedom (2 million). There were also some common words like Mario, fox, joker, lion, Elsa, Rome, Thor, and apple, with Facebook, Kia, and Google also being used in millions of passwords. Most people use passwords that are easy to remember, and people can guess them if they forget them, but hackers can also easily access these passwords to break into accounts.
The study also found that 42% of the passwords are 8-10 characters long, with 8-character passwords being the most common, and 27% of the people prefer lowercase letters or only numbers as their passwords. Only 19% of the passwords use all things that make a password strong, like lowercase, uppercase, symbols, and numbers, and it is a big improvement from 1% in 2022. Hackers can easily gain access to passwords in 0.2% to 2% attempts.
If users are using a single password in all of their accounts, a single breach can put all of the accounts at risk, and hackers don't even need any special skills to access the password. But it can result in data theft, ransomware attacks, and financial loss, especially in companies. Now it has become very important to use a password that is strong with at least 12 characters, including numbers, letters, and symbols. Turn on multi-factor authentication and watch for any leaks.
Read next:
• Creators Become Fastest Growing Job Segment in the Digital Economy
For the study, the researchers analyzed 19 billion leaked passwords and 200 major security breaches like SOCRadar.io. leak and the Snowflake breach. The study found that 4% of 727 million passwords are ‘1234’ while 338 million passwords are just ‘123456’. 56 million of the passwords were just ‘password’, while 53 million used ‘admin’. Ana was the most common name used in 178.8 million passwords and makes up about 8% of all passwords. There were also some positive words which were commonly used like love (87 million), sun (34 million), dream (6.1 million), and freedom (2 million). There were also some common words like Mario, fox, joker, lion, Elsa, Rome, Thor, and apple, with Facebook, Kia, and Google also being used in millions of passwords. Most people use passwords that are easy to remember, and people can guess them if they forget them, but hackers can also easily access these passwords to break into accounts.
The study also found that 42% of the passwords are 8-10 characters long, with 8-character passwords being the most common, and 27% of the people prefer lowercase letters or only numbers as their passwords. Only 19% of the passwords use all things that make a password strong, like lowercase, uppercase, symbols, and numbers, and it is a big improvement from 1% in 2022. Hackers can easily gain access to passwords in 0.2% to 2% attempts.
If users are using a single password in all of their accounts, a single breach can put all of the accounts at risk, and hackers don't even need any special skills to access the password. But it can result in data theft, ransomware attacks, and financial loss, especially in companies. Now it has become very important to use a password that is strong with at least 12 characters, including numbers, letters, and symbols. Turn on multi-factor authentication and watch for any leaks.
Read next:
• Creators Become Fastest Growing Job Segment in the Digital Economy
