Many individuals have dozens of passwords that allows them to access different accounts, websites, networks and systems. To protect against accounts being hacked, it’s important to maintain security measure to protect your accounts and data.
According to Splash Data’s sixth annual report, over 10% of people use a password on worst password list, with nearly 4% of people using the number 1 worst password, 123456. Other common passwords on the list include: any series of numbers from 1 to 9 (e.g., 1234, 123456789), football, qwerty (the first six keys on the top left letter row of the keyboard), princess, login, welcome, solo, abc123, and admin.
Splash Data suggest these rules when choosing a password.
- The more characters in a password the more difficult it is to breach (even up to 12 characters).
- Don’t just use alphabetic characters which have only 26 different combinations for each letter. Instead, add case sensitive, alphanumeric and symbols to each password.
Recommendation: Following these two simple rules will help secure your organization or your private accounts.