The last two years have been concerned with Internet security or cybersecurity. In other words, digital security was 2014’s main focus. However, when dealing with passwords, people seem to be too uninventive. SplashData has released its annual list of worst passwords.
Many companies have experienced the hacking adventure. Renowned companies such as Sony, Target, NSA or Snapchat were also victims of digital fraud. Besides them, many more thousands of people were victims of such digital scams. This proves that no one is bullet proof.
It is every man’s or company’s responsibility to protect its digital or online data in the best possible way. Even though everyone is surrounded with technology one could think that everyone has got accustomed to protecting those technological devices they own. Well, this seems to be not entirely true. Protecting something with a password is not man’s best quality.
People create all sorts of easy passwords because they lack imagination, the spirit of invention, lack of memory or they are just too lazy to create a complex password. SplashData has the proof of all these statements. Here is the list of worst passwords in 2014:
- 123456
- password
- 12345
- 12345678
- qwerty
- 123456789
- 1234
- baseball
- dragon
- football
- 1234567
- monkey
- letmein
- abc123
- 111111
The above mention passwords were the most common found after a conducted study released by SpalshData. If these passwords seem to be too easy or even ridiculous to some, here are a few more:
- mustang
- access
- shadow
- master
- michael
- superman
- 696969
- 123123
- batman
- trustno1
Even though some passwords seem to be sound strong such as dragon or invincible such as superman, the cruel fact is that they are common passwords which anyone can guess.
In order to create safer and more secure passwords users are advised to download password management software. The software helps detect passwords’ strength, updates or completely locks them from anyone else.
To continue with, people can also use personality traits or their own personal life to encase in a password. For example, users who prefer passwords easy to remember can use facts that they remember. Take for example “MymotherwasborninMontana!”. For users who prefer 1234567, they can combine those numbers with letters such as qwerty or abcdefg, resulting to “a1b2c3d4e5f6”.
Although these passwords may seem easy they are actually quite hard to hack. These passwords are long and complex and they keep people from being part of top 10 worst password list without making too much effort.
Image Source: pcworld