A security breach at the offices of internet search giant Yahoo, which led to over 450,000 login details being leaked online, highlights how careless internet users are while choosing their passwords.
Last month, a hacking collective posted account information belonging to thousands of Yahoo users on a public website in what they described as 'a wake-up call'. According to Enterprise Innovation, the incident showed that the company that holds user details in question has poor user security, which allows the hackers to grab this important data.
But most importantly, it tells how blind internet users are when it comes to password security.
According to the report, out of 442,837 passwords that were published, the top ten passwords were "123456," "password," "welcome," "ninja," "abc123," "123456789," "princess," "sunshine," "12345678," and "0". The word "'qwerty"' (the first six letters appearing on the top left letter row of a US keyboard when read left to right, came in at number 11.
Despite their obvious weakness, numeric-only passwords still appear popular and make up nearly 6 percent of the total, with nearly one-fourth of those being a list of numeric values on the keyboard in order from 1 - 0 such as 123456 or 1234. According to the report, one must follow a simple rule for strong passwords in a bid to avoid their accounts being hacked.
First, mix up letter and numbers. Second, use a minimum of eight characters. And third, do not use real words or sequential numbers such as password 1234 5678.
But if you must, mix them up, such as p1a2s3s4w5o6r7d8.
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