“While a lot of attention is given to high profile account breaches, the truth is many passwords are next to useless because of their simplicity,” Ina Fried reports for Re/code.
“Each year, SplashData releases its list of the worst passwords. Many atop the latest list are repeat offenders, such as the top two, ‘123456’ and ‘password,’ which were also atop the prior year’s list,” Fried reports. “Two new passwords in the top 10 are ‘696969’ and ‘batman.'”
Fried reports, “Sports teams, popular children’s names and curse words are all well represented in the list of the 100 most common passwords, as are sequential keys on the keyboard.”
Read more, and see the current top 10 of bad passwords, in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Note: Once again: Too many people use one password for multiple services and weak passwords at that. Once hackers guess that password, they then have access to all sorts of things: cloud storage, bank accounts, Facebook, Twitter, email, etc.
Always use unique passwords and use Apple’s Keychain Access and iCloud Keychain to create and manage them. When used properly, it works like a dream.