Recent research reveals that executives or other high-ranking business owners tend to use easy-to-crack passwords, which increases the risk of large-scale data breaches. Some of these passwords are even ridiculously simple.
In a world like ours where access to different platforms is increasing, it’s hard not to play it easy when it comes to cybersecurity. Many of us prefer to rely on relatively simple and memorable passwords in order to facilitate this access at the risk of course of compromising the security of our data. And although it may seem surprising, business leaders are also concerned.
NordPass is a password manager to help its users organize their access codes and other secure notes by keeping them in one place. Imagine a kind of “encrypted password vault”. Launched in 2019, this company regularly conducts studies to demonstrate the importance of their work by highlighting password security issues.
For example, taken an interest in hacked access codes used by CEOs and other members of corporate management teams. The list of passwords (involved in over 290 million cybersecurity data breaches worldwide) was compiled in partnership with independent researchers specializing in cybersecurity incident research.
From “12345” to “password”
This work revealed that passwords such as “12345”, “123456”, “123456789” or even “password” (which can be translated as “password”) were among the most hacked used by CEOs. . The password “123456”, for example, has been implicated in more than 1.1 million breaches worldwide.
This research also suggested that high-ranking corporate executives often use names as passwords. The most popular would be: Tiffany (used in 100,534 breaches), Charlie (33,699), Michael (10,647) and Jordan (10,472). Mythical creatures and other animals, such as “dragon” (11,926) and “monkey” (11,675) are also believed to have been widely pirated. In total, the researchers estimate that around 80% of data breaches could be traced to easy-to-crack passcodes.
“It’s amazing how much we all think alike. This research simply confirms it. What we might consider very original can actually put us in the list of the most common“, underlines Jonas Karklys, CEO of NordPass. “Everyone from teenage gamers to business owners are targets of cybercrimes. The only difference is that commercial entities pay a higher price for their ignorance as a general rule. »
Password problems go even further. A few years ago, a study also revealed that many Internet users indeed kept the same password after a hack.
Email: colin@satprwire.com Phone: +44 20 4732 1984
Colin has been working in the business industry for quite a sometime and he recently made the decision to become a full-time business journalist. At Daily Research News, he also helps us take care of the business writing.
