Including your birthday, or other meaningful numbers (worst of all your social security number) Choosing 'password' as your password. Using the same password on multiple websites, or cycling between a handful of passwords. Using all lowercase letters (mixing lowercase and capital letters makes it harder to guess)
“guest” beat out “123456” to be the most popular password among Americans in 2022. Simple combinations of letters, numbers, and symbols, such as “a1b2c3,” “abc123,” or “qwerty,” are highly popular in the US.
Poor, weak passwords have the following characteristics: The password contains fewer than eight characters. The password is a word found in a dictionary (English or foreign). Names of family, pets, friends, coworkers, fantasy characters, etc.
Use numbers, symbols, and upper- and lowercase letters in random order. Don't use sequential letters and numbers. Avoid substitution: kangaroo and k@ng@r00 are both equally weak passwords, and a brute-force attack can easily crack them.
A weak password is short, common, a system default, or something that could be rapidly guessed by executing a brute force attack using a subset of all possible passwords, such as words in the dictionary, proper names, words based on the user name or common variations on these themes.
Weak/default passwords
Examples include 123456 and qwerty. Most computer systems will provide a default password when first set up. If these are not changed, this puts computers at risk.
Most hackable passwords
Second came “123456” followed by the slightly longer “123456789.” Rounding out the top five were “guest” and “qwerty.” Most of those log-ins can be cracked in less than a second.
What is the most commonly hacked password? The first place among the most hacked passwords assuredly belongs to 123456. As many as 23.2 million victims globally used this password when their accounts were leaked.
After examining 56 million breached and leaked passwords in 2023, the Cybernews research team discovered the password “123456” was used in 111,417 cases.
Cisco type 7 password
This password type uses Vigenère cipher which is essentially a simple alphabetical substitution encryption. The algorithm is reversible and thus it can be deciphered instantly into a plain text without any need for cracking.
Cybersecurity experts recommend changing your password every three months. There may even be situations where you should change your password immediately, especially if a cybercriminal has access to your account.
A strong password is: At least 12 characters long but 14 or more is better. A combination of uppercase letters, lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols. Not a word that can be found in a dictionary or the name of a person, character, product, or organization.
The safest 4-digit PIN is '8068' — or at least it was, until researchers at Data Genetics told everyone this week. The researchers there went through a set of 3.4 million four-digit personal identification numbers and found "8068" came up only 25 times.
What does 'Simple password' mean? Simple passwords only have lower case letters and numbers. They are easier to remember but might also be easier for someone else to guess.