Are you on the Naughty List this Christmas?
As Christmas approaches, children everywhere will be hoping they are not on the Naughty List and receive all the presents they asked for.
But there is another Naughty List, a list of the most common passwords in 2022 used by Naughty Users and it can make for poor reading. In fact, this list shows that despite growing cybersecurity awareness, old habits die hard and that people still use weak passwords to protect their accounts.
So what kind of passwords are we talking about?
Well, a prominent IT security provider recently published a report regarding the 200 most common passwords used in 2022 across 30 countries in various vertical markets and segmented by gender.
This is an extensive piece of research based on 3TB of data and, therefore, for the purposes of brevity, locality and relevance, we have narrowed this down to the top 50 (or so) passwords used in the UK.
So grab yourself a glass of Mulled Wine and take a look at the lists in this post (please click on the images to enlarge).
Are your favourite passwords on there?
If so, change them!
If not, well done, but don’t relax and seriously consider deploying Multi-factor Authentication to protect yourself from un-authorised access.
Also, please bear in mind the content of the third column indicating the time it would take a hacker to crack the password. Some can be discovered in the blink of an eye!
His and Hers Passwords
The research also shows the differences in passwords used by Male and Female Users with their ‘Top Ten’ in the UK shown below.
Every year, researchers notice the same pattern — sports teams, movie characters, and food items dominate every password list.
Ladies First! (chocolate is popular)
| Password | Global Rank |
| password | 1 |
| 123456 | 2 |
| charlie | 161 |
| tigger | – |
| sunshine | 133 |
| guest | 4 |
| london | – |
| chocolate | – |
| monkey | 112 |
| softgunmurah | – |
Men will be Men! (three football teams mentioned)
| Password | Global Rank |
| password | 1 |
| 123456 | 2 |
| mosh2021 | – |
| 12345 | 8 |
| liverpool | 197 |
| qwerty | 5 |
| 123456789 | 3 |
| arsenal | – |
| 12345678 | 6 |
| chelsea | – |
Finally no matter how strong you may believe your password is – it is probably crack-able.
Serious cyber criminals can deploy automated tools to investigate passwords at rates in excess of 7,100 ‘tests’ per second. The way to combat this is to put in Multi-factor Authentication and Fusion IT are experts in its deployment.
Interested? Please call us on 0333 241 4123 or email [email protected] for professional, impartial advice.
Thanks
Richard
