UK's NCSC reveals world's most hacked passwords

Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre has released a few pointers after it noticed huge gaps in the knowledge of the public which prevents them from being safe online. It also released a separate analysis of 100,000 most commonly recurring passwords that have been used the most by hackers.

Among the worst passwords that were made use of by hackers were: names of soccer clubs and soccer players, musicians, and fictional characters. But topping the list was “123456”. The password has already been deemed as the worst by many studies and surveys from around the world. The second worst password on the list was “123456789” which was used 7.7 million times.

Advising general public on better password etiquette, Dr. Ian Levy, NCSC Technical Director said: “Password re-use is a major risk that can be avoided - nobody should protect sensitive data with something that can be guessed, like their first name, local football team or favorite band. Using hard-to-guess passwords is a strong first step and we recommend combining three random but memorable words. Be creative and use words memorable to you, so people can’t guess your password.”

By releasing its findings, the NCSC intends to raise awareness on how hackers use easy passwords to cause cybersecurity breaches. These findings were released by the NCSC in the lead up to the all-important CYBERUK 2019 which is to be held in Glasgow this week.