Manutd, Liverpool and Blink 182 are some of the passwords you should stop using according to a survey done by the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre(NCSC) The firm had analyzed a ton of passwords that belonged to user accounts worldwide that had been compromised.
The list is a long one just like as people choose passwords from artists to fictional characters and football teams including blink182, superman, Manutd and liverpool respectively. As usual, 123456 was the most used password with over 23.2 million accounts. 123456789 came close with 7.7 million accounts while qwerty and password was used by over 3 million accounts each.
People’s names also featured such as Charlie, Jessica, Daniel, Ashley and Michael. Other UK football teams that made the list include mancity, chelsea and arsenal. Popular US NFL teams made the cut too such as Dallas Cowboys – cowboys1. Names of the days of week and months of the year were not spared as Sunday was the most password while August was the most used password respectively.
Other Passwords to avoid include 111111, 12345678, 1234567, 12345, abc123 and password1.
According to CNN, there were surprises in the list including iloveyou missing from the top 10 while monkey and dragon made the cut to the top 20. Swear words also featured.
The Uk cybersecurity firm gave a couple of recommendations including using three “random but memorable” terms in a password, avoiding password reuse for multiple accounts. One thing you can also add is 2-factor authentication to increase the security of your accounts. You can also get a password manager to generate for you strong and unique passwords for your online accounts.
This revelation elicited some reactions such as from Mark Hoppus from the band Blink-182 who tweeted out his reaction. The tweet got witty and sarcastic replies too.
Others plotted to change their passwords
