You may think you’re smart if your computer password is “password”, but in actual fact, it has now been proven that you are a moron.
Data security protection outfit, Imperva, has published a study on “Consumer Password Worst Practices”, after analyzing the some 32 million passwords recently left bear, naked and trembling for all the world to see after social media application developer RockYou was hacked by deadly SQL injection.
And oh, what an original bunch of 32million people they were, with the top 10 most used passwords on the list breaking down as follows:
1. 123456
2. 12345
3. 123456789
4. Password
5. iloveyou
6. princess
7. rockyou
8. 1234567
9. 12345678
10. abc123
Imperva’s CTO Amichai Shulman, thinks the attack could well have been a lesson learned, however, claiming that “never before has there been such a high volume of real-world passwords to examine.”
“Everyone needs to understand what the combination of poor passwords means in today’s world of automated cyber attacks,” he said, noting that with “only minimal effort, a hacker can gain access to one new account every second—or 1000 accounts every 17 minutes.”
But whether or not we’ll all learn from our mistakes is something still shrouded in doubt. “The problem has changed very little over the past 20 years,” said Shulman, referring to a 1990 Unix password study that showed a password selection pattern similar to what consumers select today.
It’s almost Monty Python-Esque, really.
The Crowd (in unison): Yes! We’re all individuals!
Brian: You’re all different!
The Crowd (in unison): Yes, we are all different!
Man in Crowd: I’m not.
Another Man: Shhh!
