One common mistake done by a lot of people is by choosing a poor and common password that anyone can guess. Whether your password is your birthday or favorite number, passwords remain to be one simple yet difficult task to make. So the question is, is your password common or not?
Most Common Passwords You Might Have Already Used in the Past
Earlier this year, the United Kingdom's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) created a worldwide survey dealing with the most common passwords that people mostly use for their accounts online. According to their study, a lot of what people think is a unique password turns out to be the most common passwords that people all over the world use to protect their personal information.
Several passwords mentioning the classic '123456' already has a population of 23.2 million, and '123456789' was used by 7.7 million people worldwide. The words 'qwerty' and 'password' were also one of the most common with its used population of over 3 million people. Aside from these, the study found out that passwords having the names of favorite bands, superheroes, or even the first name of the owners were being tracked as the most guessable password in the world.
The top 10 most common passwords were:
- 123456
- 123456789
- qwerty
- password
- 111111
- 12345678
- abc123
- 1234567
- password1
- 12345
Other than this list, 'Sunday' is the most common day password and 'August' turned out to be the most common month password used by a lot of people. Interestingly, the phrase 'iloveyou' did not make it on the top 10 but still one of the most commonly used passwords. Words like 'monkey' and 'dragon' also made it to the top 20 most used password worldwide.
What Does This Information Tell People
Ian Levy, NCSC'sTechnical Director, stated that people must be aware of their passwords, whether for a social media account or financial accounts. "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 that people can't guess your password," added by him.
Chrome 79 Helps You Scan Your Password
If you're using Google Chrome, there's a major chance that your password will now be protected than ever. Since the released of Google Chrome 79 last week, the company announced that it will be having stringent policies when it comes to local passwords used by its users. According to Google Chrome, this is one way to fully curb the possibilities of their users to fall victim to different online scams like phishing—done by common and guessable passwords used.
Since the company has a compilation of passwords saved on their database, Google Chrome used this opportunity to help people in identifying whether their password is prone to scams and phishing. For example, your user password will be compared to a 4-billion strong public list of compromised usernames and passwords. Once there's a match, Google Chrome will provide you a notification that your password is poor and that you must replace it with something stronger.
This Password Checkup is being integrated on mobile and desktop Google Chrome all over the world.
