Despite the increasingly vast trust we put into the Internet to keep our personal and business information safe and secure, many users take their passwords very lightly. In an analysis studying over 32 million passwords from RockYou, a company that develops software for social networks, it's been discovered just how little effort is put in to keep things secure. The results are shocking.
Most Common Passwords used on RockYou:
Source: Imperva |
RockYou has been criticized in the past for having poor privacy practices. An unknown hacker managed to get in and steal millions of user accounts and passwords, and then posted them on the Internet publicly (This goes to show you that website security is extremely important, especially if you allow your visitors and clients to access your site). Imperva, a company that develops software for preventing hackers and has been running studies like this for over a decade, took the list and put together the top 32 most used passwords. Imperva states that the data set from RockYou is pretty similar to the rest of the Internet. 123456If anyone remembers that infamous scene in the film 'Space Balls' where Mel Brooks recites the password (12345) that gives him access to an entire planet, he shrugs off the fact that it's also the same password as his luggage. The joke isn't very far off, since the study shows that '123456' represents 1% of passwords used. Of course, right up there on the list is '12345,' the creative adaptation '654321,' and of course the nefarious 'password.' In fact, 20% of the 32 million people used a tiny pool consisting of 5,000 passwords. A hacker could easily fire off thousands of password guesses in a matter of minutes, meaning these users might as well not have a password in the first place.
Best PracticeIf it isn't obvious, having a secure password matters. Use a combination of letters and numbers, and if the site gives you the option to enter 6-18 characters, don't be compelled to stop on the sixth. Don't use common words, names, or sequential numbers, and always combine numbers with letters (and symbols if possible). Some sites won't allow you to pick common passwords, and others may take action to block an account if too many incorrect guesses are made, but the real line of defense is having a strong password for each account. At least have two or three so your email, bank accounts, and social networking sites are all using separate passwords, although it's best to have a different password for each account, just in case. |
The time to implement a social media policy is now.
Your social media policy outlines for employees your companies guidelines or principles for communicating in the online world. Your company should have a communications policy in place that spell out your expectations for phone and email, it’s important that you add social media and online site usage to this policy.
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How To Choose Very Strong Passwords That Are Easy To Remember
Written by TSGI don't know about you, but I don't want to remember and type an epistle when I fill out a password field. And, ideally, I don't want to use the same password on many sites, because if one is compromised then my entire life is unlocked.
I want to show you here how to choose very strong passwords for every website that you use, that are different for each website, and are each only 9 characters in length max.
A study found that an 8-character password that's constructed in the manner I'm going to show you has 7.2 quadrillion different combinations, and will take 83.5 days to crack if the hacker can try 1 billion different passwords per second.
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