Passwords To Avoid: Here Are The Most Hacked Passwords
Millions of Online users stare at hacking attempts, with most of these attempts succeeding for users who use ‘easy-to-guess’ passwords such as 123456.
More than 30 million people fell victims according to a new research released by the National Crime Security Centre (NCSC).
The report found ‘123456’ was the most used, ahead of 123456789 and qwerty – the series of letters which appear in a line on a computer keyboard.
The report by the NCSC, further revealed that hundreds of thousands of people used common names, and their favourite Premier League football teams as their password.
‘Liverpool’ was the most common Premier League Football team used in a password.
“Using hard-to-guess passwords is a strong first step and we recommend combining three random but memorable words. Be creative and use words memorable to you, so people can’t guess your password,” said Dr Ian Levy, NCSC’s technical director.
The analysis also found that many British internet users did not know the best ways to protect themselves from cybercrime.
James said: “Cyber security is a serious issue, but there are some simple actions everyone can take to better protect against hackers.
“Password re-use is a major risk that can be avoided – nobody should protect sensitive data with something that can be guessed, like their first name, local football team or favourite band.
The list was created after breached usernames and passwords were obtained from global breaches and published on ‘Have I Been Pwned’ website by international web security expert Troy Hunt.
Read: MTN Launches Whatsapp Airtime, Data Recharge Channel
The website main purpose is to allow allows people to check if they have an account that has been compromised in a recent data breach.
Here is the list of sampled easy to guess passwords;
The 20 most used passwords
123456 (23.2m)
123456789 (7.7m)
qwerty (3.8m)
password (3.6m)
1111111 (3.1m)
12345678 (2.9m)
abc123 (2.8m)
1234567 (2.5m)
password1 (2.4m)
12345 (2.3m)
1234567890 (2.2m)
123123 (2.2 m)
000000 (1.9m)
Iloveyou (1.6m)
1234 (1.3m)
1q2w3e4r5t (1.2m)
Qwertyuiop (1.1m)
123 (1.02m)
Monkey (980, 209)
Dragon (968,625)
Top 5 names
ashley (432,276)
michael (425,291)
daniel (368,227)
jessica (324,125)
charlie (308,939)
Top 5 football teams
liverpool (280,723)
chelsea (216,677)
arsenal (179,095)
manutd (59,440)
everton (46,619)
Top 5 musicians
blink182 (285,706)
50cent (191,153)
eminem (167,983)
metallica (140,841)
slipknot (140,833)
Top five fictional characters
superman (333,139)
naruto (242,749)
tigger (237,290)
pokemon (226,947)
batman (203,116)
