We live in an age when passwords are a part of our daily lives. We use them for just about anything – from submitting work to unwinding at home with music or movies. And yet, it looks like humanity has yet to master the art of creating secure passwords.
As cited by TechSpot, the UK National Cyber Security Centre analysed passwords found in public databases of breached accounts. They found that 123456 is still being used by 23.2 million people. Equally bad ones like 123456789, 1111111, qwerty and passwords are also still extremely common, with each sloppy iteration being used by millions of people.
The report was made with the help of Troy Hunt, the man behind the Have I Been Pwned website. In case you haven’t heard of the website before, it’s a useful page that lets you know if your email address or passwords have been compromised by prior data breaches.
The key to having a good password, as former NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden said, is to have passphrases instead. It’s also important to not have the same password for multiple different accounts, as Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg will tell you.
(Source: TechSpot)
