A team of researchers recently published a list of the top passwords discovered in leaks resulting from data breaches in 2019. The researchers studied approximately 500 million passwords to discover which ones were the easiest to crack.
As expected, researchers discovered that users are not following expert when choosing their passwords, making it easier for hackers to guess the characters of the passwords after a few attempts.
The most common password discovered in breaches was “12345,” which is no surprise to the researchers. Specifically, 2.8 million people were found to be using it. The team also ranked “123456” and “123456789” in second and third place, respectively.
The password “password” took fifth place and as we go down the list, we find passwords like “test1”, “asdf”, “qwerty”, “iloveyou”, etc.
“The most popular passwords contain all the obvious and easy combinations of numbers, popular female names, and simple sequences of letters,” NordPass writes.
People tend to choose easy passwords, which they often use across all accounts , so they don't have to remember many different passwords, which leaves them exposed to attacks.
In case you want to check if your password has been stolen, you can visit this website, which clarifies if your email-id has ever been part of a data. If the password used is very easy or belongs to one of the ones mentioned above, then it is very likely that you will find it on the above site.
The best solution to this problem is to use strong passwords and choose a password manager that can store and even autofill all your passwords. Alternatively, you can also set facial recognition or fingerprint passwords, which are difficult to crack.
