A new study of compromised credentials has revealed interesting facts about popular passwords that users set. In total, experts analyzed 15 billion passwords that appeared in various leaks.
According to a CyberNews report , only 2 billion passwords learned were found to be unique. Most use less than eight characters, and the passwords themselves are not only very short, but also fairly easy to guess.
As for specific words, everything is funny here: “ass” was found in 26.8 million passwords, “fuck” – in 4.8 million. The most popular year that appeared in leaked passwords was 2010 (10 million). followed by 1987 (8.4 million) and 1991 (8.3 million).
The most common name was Eva (7 million), followed by Alex (7 million), Anna (6.5 million) and Max (5.6 million).
Researchers do not recommend including any of these words in their passwords because they are fairly easy to calculate. Moreover, it is better to avoid words that can be found in dictionaries altogether. The length of the password is also very important. The experts repeat: it is unacceptable to use short passwords.