Choosing the right password is more important than you may think!
Choosing the right password – What’s it to me?
In today’s world technology is always right at all of our fingertips. All things considered, this is a good thing to most people. Still, we must work to keep our personal identities safe. How would you honestly answer this question:
How safe am I being on the internet?
Typical people can have multiple passwords to a series of different accounts on the internet, like social media sites, e-mail and online banking. We are all vulnerable out there when it comes to the simple passwords we choose so that we can remember them all.
A study at the trends of the simple passwords used in the 1990’s all the way to now, we have seen many similarities in passwords chosen like “12345, abc123, and password” When we look at the overall picture we see that the best way to make sure you don’t fall victim to hacker’s with bad intentions choose a more complex password.
Pointers for password creation:
- Select one with 8 or more characters
- Add a capital letter, number, and some form of punctuation mark (ex. Pa33w0rd!)
- Never use your street name or your own name in a password
This above example (Pa33word!) shows a very simple password converted to different characters to make it more difficult for a hacker to figure out. Most hacker’s at this time do not try and guess your password by inputting it themselves they have programs that do that for them. The experts suggest that everyone should choose at least two different passwords; a complex one for Web sites where security is vital, such as banks and e-mail, and a simpler one for places where the stakes are lower, such as social networking and entertainment sites.
Here is a list of the top 32 user passwords that got hacked from a company that makes software for social media sites like Facebook and MySpace:
Most popular passwords:
1. 123456
2. 12345
3. 123456789
4. password
5. iloveyou
6. princess
7. rockyou
8. 1234567
9. 12345678
10. abc123
11. nicole
12. daniel
13. babygirl
14. monkey
15. jessica
16. lovely
17. michael
18. ashley
19. 654321
20. qwerty
21. iloveu
22. michelle
23. 111111
24. 0
25. tigger
26. password1
27. sunshine
28. chocolate
29. anthony
30. angel
31. FRIENDS
32. soccer
Source: New York Times
It should go without saying, but don’t ever use one of these passwords! And, if one of these is currently a password of yours, I would greatly advise that you change it ASAP!
Chris Branson, Network Engineer
Related posts:
Tags: internet and passwords, password, password tips, safety and passwords