Risk of a Common Password and Ways to Avoid it

Using a common password leaves your organization at risk for cybercriminals to attack your account. Let’s add password protection as a major component in your organization’s cybersecurity plan. The risk of a common password is tremendous, and you should avoid having one at all costs.

Did you know:

4.7% of users have the password password;
8.5% use as their password : password or 123456;
9.8% use as their password : password, 123456 or 12345678;
14% have a password from the top 10 passwords used.
40% have a password from the top 100 passwords used.
79% have a password from the top 500 passwords used.
91% have a password from the top 1000 passwords used.

What does this tell you? Think twice before you make “abcdef” your next password. According to a study from SecurityCoverage Inc., if a password contains just six lowercase letters, especially if it’s a common word or combination, a cyber-thief can figure it out in 10 minutes!

However making a six-character password that has numbers AND symbols boosts complexity enough that a skilled hacker would need 16 days to break it, the study found. A task that is most likely not worth doing for that hacker.

Some sites now require a password with at least 1 uppercase letter, one number. and maybe a symbol as well. This is a step in the right direction even if it makes remembering your password just a little tougher. A simple and easy to remember example of this would be “Money17$.”

The real security of course comes from those dreaded passwords that are generated for you. They contain a longer password, of at least 8 characters, with a random order of letters, numbers, and symbols. These are nearly impossible to remember. However, an eight-character password with random letters, numbers, and symbols will take 463 years to break according to the same study. Nine random characters will take a whopping 44,530 years.

“People are careless because they don’t understand the threat said Ed Barrett, VP of marketing for SecurityCoverage.” LinkedIn was compromised in June and had 6.5 million passwords leaked. Yahoo had 6 million passwords stolen as well.

Another important consideration, don’t use the “show typing function” as you type your passwords. Many hackers don’t bother hacking at all but rather infect your employees’ computers with a virus that shows their keystrokes, thus the passwords.

The fact is you can either use strong complex passwords and have trouble remembering them or use simple, weak passwords and suffer from the risk of being hacked. We are not recommending a password of “nif$g*u3ng64dsf7” like a security expert would love as we understand the frustrations and hassle of remembering 20 passwords. We are advising that the next time you make a new password, especially for an important account, that you add some complexity to it. Go back to your most important accounts, like your bank account, and add a few numbers. It will greatly help in reducing your risk.