Your cat’s name, 123456 or 00000, is tempting to go for easy-to-remember passwords, but these are a boon for anyone trying to hack into your account. In a study published on November 14, NordPass reveals the 200 most used passwords by the French in 2022. And they are far from being the most secure.
73% of the most common passwords in 2022 remain the same as in 2021. The French bet on ease with simple combinations of numbers and letters, of which here is a small anthology of the top 10: 1234656, 123456789, azerty , 1234561, azertyuiop , loulou, 000000, password or even doudou.
Actually, the French are no exception, and many of these too-easy passwords are found all over the world. Specifically for 2022, references to culture are quite numerous in the choice of passwords. Thus, the word “Oscar” has been used almost 63,000 times around the world. The popular movies of the year are also popular: “Batman” has been used more than 2 million times, followed by “euphoria” and “charm”.
To compile this list, NordPass partnered with cybersecurity researchers who relied on leaked passwords that appeared on the Dark Web.
Tips for a secure password
Weak passwords are often the same year after year, NordPass notes, and the references are similar: sports teams, movie characters, and food.
However, passwords are becoming more and more difficult to crack due to the evolution of technologies and security systems for websites. Thus, “the sample of passwords accessible for analysis was much smaller than in previous years,” specifies NordPass in a press release.
To ensure the security of your various accounts, it is important to use strong, that is, complex passwords. For this, some basic rules must be known, such as inventing a password of at least 12 characters, mixing upper and lower case letters, numbers and symbols, and imagining different passwords for each account. The user can also go through password generators.
Source: BFM TV
