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01-23-10, 08:56 AM
A study of millions of internet accounts, held by one website, has revealed the top ten most common online passwords.
The report was put together by security experts, Imperva, after a major vulnerability was discovered in Rockyou.com.
A hacker posted 32 million passwords on the internet, and that large amount of data gave security specialists an insight into commonly used words and phrases.
The ten most commonly used passwords were:
1. 123456
2. 12345
3. 123456789
4. Password
5. iloveyou
6. princess
7. rockyou *
8. 1234567
9. 12345678
10. abc123
Bruce Schneier from Imperva said users should improve security by using a sentence.
"Take a sentence and turn it into a password," he said.
"Something like 'This little piggy went to market' might become "tlpWENT2m"."
He also advised people to use a different password for all sites.
Imperva recommends that passwords contain at least eight letters, with a mix of upper case, lower case, special characters and numbers.
The experts added that a combination of poor passwords and automated attacks means that in just 110 attempts, a hacker could gain access to one new account on every second.
http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/mp/6710257/study-reveals-most-common-passwords/
The report was put together by security experts, Imperva, after a major vulnerability was discovered in Rockyou.com.
A hacker posted 32 million passwords on the internet, and that large amount of data gave security specialists an insight into commonly used words and phrases.
The ten most commonly used passwords were:
1. 123456
2. 12345
3. 123456789
4. Password
5. iloveyou
6. princess
7. rockyou *
8. 1234567
9. 12345678
10. abc123
Bruce Schneier from Imperva said users should improve security by using a sentence.
"Take a sentence and turn it into a password," he said.
"Something like 'This little piggy went to market' might become "tlpWENT2m"."
He also advised people to use a different password for all sites.
Imperva recommends that passwords contain at least eight letters, with a mix of upper case, lower case, special characters and numbers.
The experts added that a combination of poor passwords and automated attacks means that in just 110 attempts, a hacker could gain access to one new account on every second.
http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/mp/6710257/study-reveals-most-common-passwords/