From the Russia hacking controversy, to the Britney Spears death hoax, hacking has recently became a major issue. However, one of the best ways people can protect themselves is by using a hard to crack password. However, a new study found that people tend to have really easy to crack password combination. For example, want to know the most common password of 2016? Recent research by Keeper Security has found that 17% of all accounts had ‘123456’ as their password in 2016.
Keeper Security explained that after they analyzed 10 million passwords that became available thanks to data breaches that occurred in 2016 they discovered that most-frequently used passwords have rarely changed over the past few years making millions of people vulnerable to getting hacked.
Researchers also found that four of the top ten passwords on the list are six characters or shorter, which is problematic because hackers have developed the technology unscramble passwords in a matter of a few seconds.
In addition, Keeper Security explains that even when most people try to scramble words with numbers, passwords can still be easily cracked by ‘dictionary-based password crackers’.
With that being said, the cyber security company explains that blame does not rest entirely on unknowledgeable computer users. The research firm argues that email providers are not working hard to help users create difficult passwords.
Ultimately, the company explains that website owners should work harder on enforcing password security best practices.
We can criticize all we want about the chronic failure of users to employ strong passwords. After all, it’s in the user’s best interests to do so,” Keeper Security explained on their website. “But the bigger responsibility lies with website owners who fail to enforce the most basic password complexity policies. It isn’t hard to do, but the list makes it clear that many still don’t bother.”