Almost everyone’s passwords are terrible, Government survey finds
Three quarters of Britons are using easily guessable passwords
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Most internet users have terrible passwords, according to a new survey, and are exposing their information to risk of being stolen by hackers.
A government survey in October 2014 as part of the Cyber Streetwise campaign found that three quarters of Britons use passwords that are not secure. These include a pet's name, place of birth or something related to a favourite sports team.
The findings echo a survey released earlier this year that showed the most popular passwords are “Password” and “123456”.
Weak passwords can give hackers easy access to information, by using special code that can automatically try the most popular choices. They helped hackers find the photos leaked as part of the “Fappening”, and once malicious hackers gain access to one account they can usually find their way through the rest.
Security experts advise that users choose different passwords across sites, and ensure that each of them contains different characters and isn’t easily guessable. Some companies offer software to allow people to automatically generate and store passwords, to keep them safe.
"We have to take some responsibility," said Mark James, an IT security specialist for anti-virus firm ESET. "Sadly most people choose ease of use over security.
"We all want easy in this modern age, we associate advances with electronics with making things simpler for us and very rarely look at the security risks involved when using these devices."
Additional reporting by Press Association
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments