I know what your Facebook password is. If you feel anxious for a moment, then World Password Day is just for you.
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World Password Day
Each year on the first Thursday of May, World Password Day is celebrated to address the critical need for secure passwords. We will celebrate the next World Password Day In 2021, on May 6th.
If there’s one thing that technology users don’t care about, it’s the characters (and strings) we use in our passwords. That in turn can cost all of our data and private information. So, the next World Password Day is a great opportunity to update passwords of our various web accounts such as Facebook and Google services. It is also an opportunity to learn more about information security and smart online activity.
Where Does This Day Come From?
Mark Burnett, a security researcher, called people to celebrate “Password Day” and encouraged them to update important passwords in his 2005 book Perfect Passwords. His idea inspired Intel Security division (McAfee anti-virus company) and he declared the first Thursday of May as the World Password Day in 2013.
Why Is This Day Important?
Nowadays, a lot of information serves as a type of modern currency. Valuable information can cost a fortune. Not to mention being a serious downfall for a person who loses this information or at least loses control of it. In case unfriendly people have access to your online accounts, they can impersonate you, steal your information and even steal your money. Yes, this includes your account in the bank app, PayPal, or any account you created on any website. All of these accounts contain confidential information that can cause serious damage to you.
The Business Insider website conducted information security research. It found that 10,000 of the most common passwords give access to 98% of all accounts. In other words, the vast majority of people use the same passwords for many accounts and do not bother to change them over time.
There are lists of the most common passwords on the network that hackers can use to try to break into different sites. If your password is one of these passwords, you might have a problem. To prevent this from happening, or at least to increase the security of your information, it is highly recommended using a strong password.
How Do We Celebrate This Day?
It is not so much a celebration as it is a landmark. You can think of a routine check-up with the doctor. You should check the different passwords and make them stronger (if possible – change them completely). Many services, such as Google Account, offer 2-step identification. If you have not done this yet, you should do it now.
How to Choose a Secure Password?
You can make up one from your mind that contains numbers, symbols, lower and upper case letters. (This is one of the reasons why I hate systems that force me to create a password using only numbers and letters). You can also opt for the simple variant and use a tool that generates passwords for you. For example, Lastpass, which also allows users to save their passwords. What passwords should you avoid?
SplashData, a company that provides security services, compiled a list of 25 most used passwords. It evaluated no less than 5,000,000 passwords that were leaked in 2018. Worse, these passwords have already been cited in surveys conducted in other years. There are “strange” passwords like donald (yes, it was one of the most used this year) and ,! @ # $% ^ & (Look at your note or PC keyboard, nothing more than the sequence in numbers, 123456, by pressing the SHIFT key ).
Hackers have high hit rates using celebrity names, popular culture and sports terms and simple keyboard patterns to access online accounts. This is because they know that many people use these easy-to-remember combinations.
Here is a list of the 25 most used passwords in the world. If your password is similar to some of these, we recommend that you start thinking about a stronger one.
- 123456
- password
- 123456789
- 12345678
- 12345
- 111111
- 1234567
- sunshine
- qwerty
- iloveyou
- princess
- admin
- welcome
- 666666
- a B C 1 2 3
- football
- 123123
- monkey
- 654321
- ! @ # $% ^ & *
- charlie
- aa123456
- donald
- password1
- qwerty123
It is also best to avoid password containing the following:
- Names of people and pets.
- Special dates (birthdays, weddings, etc.).
- In short, things that are likely to be posted on Facebook or Instagram.
Examples of Passwords
- Examples of weak passwords: michaelfarber, 12345678
- Example of reasonable password: michaelfarber1X9X9X3
- Example of a strong password: XB&b!OFJs#hZsw!0
In Conclusion: World Password Day
Password Day is an important day that aims to remind us to protect ourselves online. Still, it’s a little odd that we need to be reminded of that. How strong is your password?
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