Close
  • Latest News
  • Cybersecurity
  • Big Data and Analytics
  • Cloud
  • Mobile
  • Networking
  • Storage
  • Applications
  • IT Management
  • Small Business
  • Development
  • Database
  • Servers
  • Android
  • Apple
  • Innovation
  • Blogs
  • PC Hardware
  • Reviews
  • Search Engines
  • Virtualization
Read Down
Sign in
Close
Welcome!Log into your account
Forgot your password?
Read Down
Password recovery
Recover your password
Close
Search
Menu
Search
  • Latest News
  • Cybersecurity
  • Big Data and Analytics
  • Cloud
  • Mobile
  • Networking
  • Storage
  • Applications
  • IT Management
  • Small Business
  • Development
  • Database
  • Servers
  • Android
  • Apple
  • Innovation
  • Blogs
  • PC Hardware
  • Reviews
  • Search Engines
  • Virtualization
More
    Home Latest News
    • Blogs
    • Security Watch

    Rockyou Breach Analysis Reveals Insecure Passwords

    By
    Brian Prince
    -
    January 21, 2010
    Share
    Facebook
    Twitter
    Linkedin

      Database security vendor Imperva released an analysis of 32 million passwords exposed in the Rockyou.com breach. What they found is not good.

      According to their analysis, the three most commonly used passwords are “123456”, “12345” and “123456789.” Other common passwords include “Password” and “iloveyou.”

      Their analysis echoes a paper written by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and IT University in Copenhagen that found only four percent of 836 people surveyed obeyed best practices for passwords.

      “Everyone needs to understand what the combination of poor passwords means in today’s world of automated cyber attacks: with only minimal effort, a hacker can gain access to one new account every second–or 1000 accounts every 17 minutes,” Imperva CTO Amichai Shulman said in a statement. “The data provides a unique glimpse into the way that users select passwords and an opportunity to evaluate the true strength of passwords as a security mechanism. Never before has there been such a high volume of real-world passwords to examine.”

      According to the Imperva study, which can be found here, nearly 50 percent of users used names, slang words, dictionary words or trivial passwords such as consecutive numbers. The problem with such passwords is that they are easier for attackers to brute force (guess).

      “Employees using the same passwords on Facebook that they use in the workplace bring the possibility of compromising enterprise systems with insecure passwords, especially if they are using easy to crack passwords like ‘123456’,” Shulman said. The problem has changed very little over the past 20 years. It’s time for everyone to take password security seriously; it’s an important first step in data security.”

      For those looking for suggestions, here are a few tips to improve password strength:

      1)Don’t use actual words in any language, including slang, as a password by itself. In other words, “love” is not a strong password. “Love2001c” is better.

      2)Don’t use personal information such as birthdays, pet names, etc.

      3)Don’t use obvious number patterns such as “1,2,3,4,5.”

      Avatar
      Brian Prince

      MOST POPULAR ARTICLES

      Android

      Samsung Galaxy XCover Pro: Durability for Tough...

      Chris Preimesberger - December 5, 2020 0
      Have you ever dropped your phone, winced and felt the pain as it hit the sidewalk? Either the screen splintered like a windshield being...
      Read more
      Cloud

      Why Data Security Will Face Even Harsher...

      Chris Preimesberger - December 1, 2020 0
      Who would know more about details of the hacking process than an actual former career hacker? And who wants to understand all they can...
      Read more
      Cybersecurity

      How Veritas Is Shining a Light Into...

      eWEEK EDITORS - September 25, 2020 0
      Protecting data has always been one of the most important tasks in all of IT, yet as more companies become data companies at the...
      Read more
      Big Data and Analytics

      How NVIDIA A100 Station Brings Data Center...

      Zeus Kerravala - November 18, 2020 0
      There’s little debate that graphics processor unit manufacturer NVIDIA is the de facto standard when it comes to providing silicon to power machine learning...
      Read more
      Apple

      Why iPhone 12 Pro Makes Sense for...

      Wayne Rash - November 26, 2020 0
      If you’ve been watching the Apple commercials for the past three weeks, you already know what the company thinks will happen if you buy...
      Read more
      eWeek


      Contact Us | About | Sitemap

      Facebook
      Linkedin
      RSS
      Twitter
      Youtube

      Property of TechnologyAdvice.
      Terms of Service | Privacy Notice | Advertise | California - Do Not Sell My Information

      © 2021 TechnologyAdvice. All Rights Reserved

      Advertiser Disclosure: Some of the products that appear on this site are from companies from which TechnologyAdvice receives compensation. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site including, for example, the order in which they appear. TechnologyAdvice does not include all companies or all types of products available in the marketplace.

      ×