Key findings of a new study conducted by Keeper Security that analyzed 10 million hacked accounts from breached data dumps for the most popular passwords.

Users’ bad habits are still one of the biggest problems for the IT industry, weak passwords and their reuse on multiple websites every day potentially expose a billion users to cyber attacks.

I’m not surprised by the results of a new study conducted by the security firm Keeper Security that analyzed 10 million hacked accounts from breached data dumps for the most popular passwords.

Below the Top 10 Keeper Security’s 2016 most popular password list:

123456 123456789 qwerty 12345678 111111 1234567890 1234567 password 123123 987654321

Most used passwords continue to be 123456 and 123456789 despite the numerous awareness campaigns on a proper security posture, “123456” accounts for 17 per cent of the overall amount of hacked accounts the firm used as data sample.

“Looking at the list of 2016’s most common passwords, we couldn’t stop shaking our heads. Nearly 17 percent of users are safeguarding their accounts with “123456.” What really perplexed us is that so many website operators are not enforcing password security best practices.” states the report published by Keeper Security. “We scoured 10 million passwords that became public through data breaches that happened in 2016.”

The bad news is that the list of most popular passwords hasn’t changed over the years.

“The list of most frequently used passwords has changed little over the past few years. That means that user education has limits.” continues the study.

This aspect highlights the lack of a security policy that contemplates also the use of strong passwords and enforces it. Four of the top 10 passwords on the list are composed of just six characters or shorter, it’s very easy to brute force them it the system is not properly protected.

“today’s brute-force cracking software and hardware can unscramble those passwords in seconds. Website operators that permit such flimsy protection are either reckless or lazy.”

The list also includes passwords like “1q2w3e4r” and “123qwe,” it is likely that some users attempt to use unpredictable patterns to generate strong passwords. Unfortunately dictionary-based password crackers include these variations.

The last point emerged from the report is that email providers don’t correcly monitor the use of their services made by botnet used for spam.

“Security expert Graham Cluley believes that the presence of seemingly random passwords such as “18atcskd2w” and “3rjs1la7qe” on the list indicates that bots use these codes over and over when they set up dummy accounts on public email services for spam and phishing attacks.” states the report.

Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs – authentication, data breach)

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