How bad are we at creating safer passwords? The latest data shows a whopping 75% of people worldwide don’t follow password best practices. We should know better … and yet, 84% of us reuse our passwords.
Why do I harp on this so often? You can blame over 80% of data breaches on weak or repeated passwords. Maybe you’ve never experienced the horror of identity theft, but let me tell you, it’s bad.
Now, since you’re totally going to change your passwords after reading this, let’s make sure your new one is bulletproof.
The blocklist
Get this: Over 153 million passwords from leaked databases contained a curse word. Stay away from passwords with food items, too, especially “ice,” “tea,” “pie,” “cookie” and “cake.”
Beyond that, some of the most commonly cracked passwords include:
- 111111, 12345, 123456, 12345678, 123456789, 1234567890, Qwerty123, 1q2w3e, Q2w3e4r5t
Popular names, sports teams, seasons and vacation destinations are also major no-nos:
- Eva, Alex, Anna, Max, Ava, Ella, Leo, Suns, Heat, Liverpool, Rome, Lima, Friday, Summer, Winter, KimKomandoIsTheBest (I threw that in to see if you’re paying attention!)
And don’t make your password the word “password.” It’ll be a nice day when I never have to say that again.
Wondering how criminals hack passwords?
Their methods aren’t all that complicated. Take the dictionary attack. Hackers use programs to automatically try every word in a “dictionary,” a small file with the most commonly used passwords, like the ones above.
A “brute-force attack” is when hackers try every possible character combination in an attempt to guess your login. Spoiler: It works way too often. And don’t even get me started on how easily AI password crackers can get the job done.
Lock it down
Review this list and share it with someone in your life who’s still relying on “password123.”
- Use a password manager so you won’t have to remember complex logins. There are a ton of options, including TotalPassword (just $19 using my link.), Bitwarden and 1Password.
- Use the free password managers built into your web browser. A standalone password manager is more secure, though.
- If you create a password the old-fashioned way, the longer, the better — combining letters (upper and lower case), numbers and symbols.
- Never keep your passwords stored in a visible or easily accessed place. Talking to you with the Post-it note. Barry uses this $5.99 book to write down his passwords, but he locks the book away.
😆 I used to store motivational quotes in the cloud for moments I needed some inspiration. Then, I forgot the password for my Google account. I have no Drive. (Dang, that was good!)
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