Use these 10 passwords at your own peril
With cyberattacks increasing by the month, it’s crucial to have a strong grasp or what is - or isn’t - a strong enough password to hopefully deter hackers.
And with the cybercriminals capable of unveiling 921 passwords each second, people all over have become easy targets with their choices - whether that’s from including easy-to-guess terms like the word “password” itself or common sequences like “123456” and “qwerty” - as reported by 9News.
And as analysis by CyberNews has revealed, just 13 per cent of leaked passwords - from a review of almost 15 billion - were actually unique.
According to them, two of the most popular names to appear in the selection were “Eva” and “Alex”, with a total of seven million respective uses. “Food” and “pie” were regulars, as well as the season “summer”.
While these might be easy for users to remember, and appealing for that, My Business general manager Phil Parisis had a clear warning in store when he explained that “if it’s easy for you to remember, chances are it’s also easy for cybercriminals to guess.
“That's not only putting you at risk but also exposing the businesses and corporations that you work for.
"Another common inclusion is a year - often their birth year or another significant year in their life."
Having the right information and advice at your disposal is crucial when it comes to protecting yourself, so with all of this in mind, the 10 passwords that you should avoid at all costs the next time you’re asked to come to up with one are the following:
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123456
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123456789
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qwerty
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password
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12345
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qwerty123
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1q2w3e
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12345678
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111111
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1234567890
To further protect yourself, it can be of great benefit to mix your upper and lowercase letters in your passwords, as well as throwing in a range of symbols and numbers to further disguise your intended terms.
For example, and as 9News noted, the likes of “password123” is considered a weak password, while something like “MySecurePa$$word785!” is considered much stronger, and much more protected.
And the Australian Cyber Security Centre have further suggested that internet users consider using passphrases - a number of random words put together in a string -, as they’re “harder to guess but easier to remember” than common passwords. But most of all, they recommend avoiding obvious, significant, and easy-to-guess words, like the names of children and beloved family pets.
Images: 9News