5 Commonly Hacked Passwords You Need To Stop Using
Passwords are an incredibly important tool in keeping our various personal and professional accounts safe. The problem is, they aren't exactly impossible to crack — and not just because of outside forces.
There are loads of ways someone might try to hack your accounts, from large scale attacks on company servers to social engineering tricks. But in some cases they don't even have to go that far. Sometimes they can just guess your password. More specifically, attackers can (often easily) guess a password when it's one that's known to be commonly used. New research from SPECOPS confirms several passwords that are at high risk.
If any of your passwords are common enough, someone with the right list could gain access to your accounts within seconds. The simple solution is to simply not use a common password, obviously, but what passwords are actually common enough that someone could simply guess them? Despite what the seminal 1995 film "Hackers" would have you believe, the answer isn't "love, sex, secret," or "god." Though you should probably not use any of those, either. Though the movie does still factor into the actual passwords you need to stop using, oddly enough.
What to avoid
While you may not always have control over your password's length requirements, you do have control over what that password actually is. With this in mind, never stick with default passwords that were generated when your account was first made, and try not to use any approximations of these all too common ones, per the research from SPECOPS.
- Passwords that use "sym_ckill" as a base, such as "sym_ckillOb," "sym_ckillOG," "sym_ckillOT," "sym_ckillO," or just "Sym_ckill."
- Avoid using "password" as your password. Adding a couple of extra letters or numbers at the end, like "passwordGG," won't help either.
- Avoid using strings of the same letter, for any password length. So no "GGGGGGGG," "OOOOOOOOOO," etc.
- Popular historical and pop culture people and media are also not a good idea, so don't use "cleopatra" or "minecraft" anything. Even slightly more obscure references like "hacktheplanet" (a popular phrase in 95's "Hackers") are easily guessable.
- As mentioned previously, don't use your account's default password if you can avoid it. So anything like "Sym_newhireOEIE" or "Sym_newhireOAIE" needs to be changed to something else ASAP.
Above all else, it's always recommended to create passwords that use a combination of letters and numbers — and not just a word or two with a number at the end. Mix and match, play with capital letters, and try not to pick something people would commonly associate with you (like a birthday, spouse's name, etc). And, of course, don't share your passwords with anyone you can't verify. And embrace 2FA.