I know people who are actually proud of the unique passwords they create for their precious accounts. And I get surprised at how amazing they sound and how mine seem so forbearing in their comparison.
Then I read news like this- that there are real, actual people in the world who have passwords like ‘12345’,’password’,’0000’etc and feel positively wonderful.
A list of the worst passwords of 2013 has been released according to SplashData. For the longest time, users online were using the word ‘password’ as their, well, password. But in 2013, things saw a change of events and the phrase ‘123456’ topped the list. Other passwords in the Top Ten include ‘qwerty,’ ‘abc123,’ ‘111111,’ and ‘iloveyou.’
‘Another interesting aspect of this year’s list is that more short numerical passwords showed up even though websites are starting to enforce stronger password policies,’ Morgan Slain, the company CEO, said. For example, new to this year’s list are simple and easily guessable passwords like “1234” at #16, “12345” at #20, and “000000” at #25.
Executives at SplashData said they release these lists annually to get people to change their passwords more often. ‘As always, we hope that with more publicity about how risky it is to use weak passwords, more people will start taking simple steps to protect themselves by using stronger passwords and using different passwords for different websites,’ the firm said.
the company advocated to those onlineusers whose password(s) appear on the list to change them immediately.
‘Use passwords of eight characters or more with mixed types of characters,’‘One way to create more secure passwords that are easy to recall is to use passphrases — short words with spaces or other characters separating them. It’s best to use random words rather than common phrases. For example, “cakes years birthday” or “smiles_light_skip”. Avoid using the same username/password combination for multiple websites.’
‘Use different passwords for each new website or service you sign up for.’
Also a heads-up from 4CAST, try not to use the same email account/password combination for every account service that you use. And never set your password after your hamster. Hamsters die and so do your dreams. Plus you miss Mrs Snuffles every time you log into a social networking website. Take that as a heads up from me.