Nov 19 (IndiaToday) – Passwords are often the most important line of defence against threat actors online. This is also the reason why any online service that you sign up for suggests you create a strong password filled with alphabets, numbers and even characters. It seems like people are not always keen on following this practice diligently.
A new report by Nordpass reveals just how many people can be clumsy with their security passwords online. With this, the report sheds light on how easy it is for hackers to break these passwords and take over an account. The situation is so grim, that within India, as many as 62 of the most common passwords can be broken into in less than a second.
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The report mentions a list of the most common passwords around the world. While the global consensus still lies with 123456 as the most commonly used password, in India, most people use “Password” as their password. The practically useless password is used by more than 17 lakh online users in the country. Needless to say, it falls under the category of passwords that can be hacked within a second.
The next most common password in India is 12345, followed by 123456 and 123456789 at number 3 and number 4. The first two are both used by over 10 lakh people in the country, while 123456789 and 12345678 (ranked 5th) are used by over 2 lakh people each. Some other combinations of passwords that are most commonly used in the country are india123, 1234567890, 1234567, qwerty, abc123 and xxx.
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Other password trends
A look at the top 200 most commonly used passwords in India reveals the practice of using religious names and entities for online security. Some commonly used passwords in this regard are krishna, sairam, omsairam, jaimatadi, saibaba, ganesh and more. Most of these can be compromised by threat actors within 2 minutes.
People in India also tend to use their names as passwords. Some examples of this include sachin, abhishek, rajesh, sandeep, sweety, ashish, manish, hariom, anjali, suresh, prakash and more. All of these, and other such passwords, can be broken into within half an hour, the report mentions.
Then there are phrases that people often like to use as passwords. iloveyou, goodluck, jaihanuman, success, rockstar, girlsrockz, pass@123, lucky123, Senti123 are some of these. If you use such a password too, know that it can be hacked into extremely easily by hackers.
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How to create a strong password
As a general rule, people are always advised to follow the above-mentioned trick to create a strong password – i.e. use alphabets, numbers and characters in your password. With this, you also have to keep in mind that the password should be as unique as possible, and you can do this by creating it around something that is not easily relatable to you in general and only you know.
You can also check the strength of your password through online services like those by Kaspersky. Just Google for Password Check and you will get several websites that tell you how strong your password is.
Users are also advised to keep the two-factor authentication switched on, on their online profiles. This adds another layer of security to your account, one that is impassable even if the hacker knows your password.
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