A study carried out recently by computer science student at the University of Cypress in Turkey showed than of the over 5 billion leaked passwords over the past 5 years, 1 out of every 142 passwords was…123456!
Unfortunately the study showed that the rest of the passwords didn’t look all that much better. Only 12% contained a special character like a ! or $, and 42% of them were just letters and numbers, which means that these accounts could be broken into in minutes using a simple dictionary attack.
The Takeaway
Cybercriminals are smart and the reason that they are so successful is because they know that most of us are lazy.
Remembering lots of different passwords is hard, keeping tracking of them is hard, changing them is hard. It’s hard but this is how your money and identity can get stolen and you don’t want that, do you?
So, start here: if you set up an account with any website and used a password that is only numbers or a combination of words that might be found in a dictionary, change that now. And in case you’re wondering, the word “password” can be found in the dictionary.
Not sure what to change it to and how to remember it? I recommend the Keeper password manager app. It’s built for business use and it can and store create random passwords for your employees and even check the Darkweb to see if your existing passwords have been compromised. It’s the password manager we use here at Cylanda and have successfully deployed for other businesses like yours.
YES! I would like more information about the Keeper password manager
Name*
Email address*
Phone number
SubmitReset
Remember, cyber crime isn’t going away any time soon so it’s up to you to take basic precautions to safeguard your money and identity!
Stay safe out there.
-A
Comments