SplashData, a cyber-security company, has published its annual list of most common passwords. The usual suspects like “Password” and “123456” make a triumphant return at the top, although there are some interesting new additions to show that humans really aren’t that creative when it comes to this sort of thing.
People have a tendency to reuse their passwords for multiple accounts, which is understandable considering that there are so many services that now require one. Naturally, they will also gravitate to easier to remember passwords; which usually benefits hackers trying to guess their way into unsuspecting accounts.
The company also notes that the top 100 passwords were included birthdays (sometimes only just the year), names of sports (probably the users favourite), and sports team names. All of which can easily be guessed from a short stalking session over social media.
While this list mainly collected data from American and European sources, it wouldn’t be too hard to imagine many Malaysian internet goers also using these passwords. With this in mind, it would probably be a good idea to reshare this XKCD comic about how to create a strong password.
[Source: SplashData]
