Imperva released analysis of 32 million breached Passwords
Sunday, January 31, 2010, 4:53 AM | 1 Comment
Imperva, a data security firm, has released its findings for about 32 million passwords that were breached or exposed, in a report on January 21 for the year 2009. It’s interesting to see that the top exposed passwords are so obvious a kid can try them. If you are a webmaster and the king of your domain (or maybe not), try to not use such obvious passwords.
With very little effort, as we all can see, a hacker can get into your system – may that be your website or blog. That might be OK if you have repeatedly, every week, backed up your files and database. But when you have such passwords for your Bank ATM or online financial institutions, you can imagine how expensive it can become for you as well as the institutions.
By the way, if their attack on your online belongings is successful, the hackers go through a process known in the industry as brute force attacks.
The report identifies the most commonly used passwords:
- 123456
- 12345
- 123456789
- Password
- iloveyou
- princess
- rockyou
- 1234567
- 12345678
- abc123
In a Nutshell
The report has two major findings in terms of concerns:
- The shortness and simplicity of passwords means many users select credentials that will make them exposed to basic forms of Cyber attacks known as “brute force attacks.”
- Nearly 50% of users used names, slang words, dictionary words or trivial passwords. The most common password is “123456”.
Imperva also has recommendations for users and administrators for choosing strong passwords.
So please be more than extra careful. Have password combination of upper and lower characters. Include some special characters in between like $ etc.
The report can be downloaded at: http://www.imperva.com/ld/password_report.asp
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