As we all become more and more dependent on a plethora of e-commerce and SaaS sites, it is not uncommon for some of us to have over 30+ passwords at any given point in time. If you think about those passwords for a second, at least one of them probably contains the year you were born, one contains the name of a family member or pet, and more than a few contain the trusty exclamation mark. Not only that, it is likely that you use just one of those passwords across a range of sites. This may seem like an easy way to keep track of your small directory of passwords, but in reality, you are making it far too easy for potential hackers.
Our friends over at the National Cyber Security Centre seem to agree with us – last week they published research looking at some of the most commonly used passwords for end-user accounts that have been breached. You may or may not be surprised at what you see!
