Security experts have been predicting the death of passwords. However, these are still the main way to sign in to our online accounts and mobile apps. That’s because we all know exactly how to use them; even though If we refer to doing it safely, things change.
Passwords are a huge security risk. Recently, the NordPass firm shared its list of the 200 most common passwords in 2022, which, consequently, are also the easiest to hack or impersonate.
“NordPass’s list of the 200 most common passwords of 2022 tells us everything we need to know. Passwords are a huge security risk. If yours is on the list, change it immediately. Better yet, change the way you manage all your logins. Waiting until it’s too late can cost you a lot of time, money and stress,” he says in a statement. Joseph Alborsdirector of research and awareness of the cybersecurity company ESET.
why you should be careful
Our logins represent the keys to our digital lives, from streaming and messaging services to online banking. We often have card details and personal details stored in these accounts, making passwords highly coveted targets for cybercriminals.
A June report revealed that online criminal markets are circulating 24 billion username and password combinationss, 65% more than in 2020. Criminals use various techniques to get hold of passwords, such as ‘phishing’, brute force attacks, theft of credentials or malicious code.
“Once inside your account, hackers can steal all the personal and card data stored in it, and thus use it in payment card or other fraud. In fact, the value of fraudulent transactions with payment cards in 2021 exceeded 32,000 million dollars, and it is expected to increase to 38,500 million in 2027, “says Albors.
The most used keys
Unfortunately, many netizens are making life easier for bad actors. According to a 3TB database of passwords released in security incidents, the most popular in 30 countries was ‘password‘, with almost five million visits. Second, it appears ‘123456‘, followed by ‘123456789‘, a little longer. They complete the top five of the ranking’guest‘ y ‘qwerty‘. Most of these usernames can be cracked in less than a second.
Nordpass also warns about other trends when creating keys. For example, the use of names of sports teams, fashion brands, swear words, music artists, movies, cars, video games, and food.
How to avoid problems
To protect your personal information, cybersecurity experts recommend that users take several precautions. Among them, that you do not reuse passwords or share them with third parties. It is also advisable to create intelligible keys in which numbers and symbols appear, change them at least once a year and use two-factor authentication on all those platforms that allow it. Thanks to this, even if a password is stolen, cybercriminals will not be able to access our accounts.
In case you doubt that any of your keys has fallen into the possession of third parties, you can resort to tools such as Have I Been Pwned?. Hundreds of thousands of data leaks are collected there. You only need to enter an email address and the page informs you if your accounts are among them.