Australian businesses are being warned to make sure their passwords are up to scratch this World Password Day with ‘123456’ and ‘password’ still amongst the most popular choices.
The latest data from Microsoft shows hackers are conducting 921 password attacks every second, a 74 per cent increase from 2021*.
“Using the name of your childhood pet, your birthday or the street you grew up on simply isn’t enough to protect yourself from scams or cyber attacks in 2023,” said Phil Parisis, General Manager of My Business.
“If it’s easy for you to remember, chances are it’s also easy for cybercriminals to guess and that’s not only putting you at risk but also exposing the businesses and corporations that you work for.
“Often a password is a first line of defence in a cyberattack so you want to make sure it’s like a locked door.”
According to CyberNews** and their analysis of leaked accounts, the most popular passwords in 2023 are:
- 123456
- 123456789
- qwerty
- password
- 12345
- qwerty123
- 1q2w3e
Of the more than 15 billion passwords analysed from publicly-released data breaches, only around two billion were unique.
“What’s interesting about this password data is that researchers were able to tell users favourite sporting teams, their cities, favourite food and even their ages just by their passwords,” Mr Parisis said.
“Another common inclusion is a year – often their birth year or another significant year in their life.
“Often people have the same password across their personal and work accounts which increases their chances of being hacked and losing multiple accounts at the same time.”
