These are the easiest passwords to hack, if you’re using one you should change it now

In the wake of Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey having his Twitter account hacked - how safe are your online accounts and is it time that you changed your password?

Keeping track of various passwords might be very much a modern world problem but it’s also an incredibly important one and in 2017 around 17 million UK residents were victims of cybercrime, with around £130 billion being stolen, including attacks on "email, social network, banking and online gaming."

A survey has now revealed the most common passwords and it paints a worrying picture of British internet users and cyber crime. According to new research carried out by the National Cyber Security (NCSC) in 2019 15 per cent of people said that they knew a ‘great deal’ about how to protect themselves from harmful activity online. Less than half said that they always used a strong or different password for their main email account.

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The research also found that a worrying number of people were using some very obvious passwords.

The five most common passwords

1. 123456

2. 123456789

3. Qwerty

4. Password

5. 1111111

And they didn’t stop there. The NCSC also revealed the names most likely to be used in a password.

Top 5 names people use as their password

1. Ashley

2. Michael

3. Daniel

4. Jessica

5. Charlie

Need more insights? There was also an extremely worrying amount of people using the band ‘Blink 182’ and the Premier League football club Liverpool.

NCSC technical director Dr Ian Levy said:

“We understand that cybersecurity can feel daunting to a lot of people, but the National Cyber Security Centre has published lots of easily applicable advice to make you much less vulnerable.

“Password re-use is a major risk that can be avoided – nobody should protect sensitive data with something that can be guessed, like their first name, local football team or favourite band.

“Using hard-to-guess passwords is a strong first step and we recommend combining three random but memorable words. Be creative and use words memorable to you, so people can’t guess your password.”

We’re going to go ahead and assume that your own password is a lot stronger, but just in case, maybe give it a reset.

If you’re worried about whether or not you may have already been hacked visit Have I Been Pwned, a site created to inform people of suspicious activity on their online accounts.

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