Despite constant warnings from their IT departments and CTOs, senior business executives share the same unhealthy password habits as many other Internet users.
To learn more about the password habits of business owners, CEOs, and other C-suite executives, NordPass partnered with independent researchers who analyzed over 290 million data breaches worldwide. Together, they grouped passwords by job title and industry, with organizations in technology, finance, construction, healthcare, and hospitality experiencing the most security incidents.
Among the various leadership positions examined in the NordPass study, a visible trend among executives was the use of easy-to-hack passwords that mostly contain combinations of numbers or letters.
Some of the observed bad passwords include “1q2w3e”, “12345”, “11111” and “qwerty”. However, the winner in all categories remains “123456” (used over 1 million times), followed by the password “password” (used over 700,000 times).
Coming up with strong and unique passwords
NordPass research also found that when creating passwords, senior executives often use names or mythical creatures as inspiration, rather than using a password generator to create strong and unique passwords.
The most popular mythical creatures used when inventing passwords are “dragon” and “monkey”, while the most commonly used names in passwords are “Tiffany”, “Charlie”, “Michael” and “Jordan”, which may or may not be a reference to the legendary basketball player.
> Even Fortune 500 companies have poor password hygiene
> We all still make the same mistakes when it comes to strong passwords
> Almost half of businesses have suffered a data breach in the last few years
NordPass CEO Jonas Karklys shared further insights into the company’s research and how all internet users have common ground when it comes to passwords, saying:
“It’s amazing how similar we all think, and this research simply confirms that — what we consider highly original — may in fact put us on the list of the most common.” Everyone from teenage gamers to business owners are targets of cybercrime, and the only difference is that businesses tend to pay a higher price for their ignorance.”
To avoid becoming a victim of a data breach due to poor password hygiene, NordPass recommends using a password manager to securely store all passwords for your online accounts and enabling multi-factor authentication (MFA) for an extra layer of security .
- Further protect your online privacy with one of the best VPN services
This article was previously published on Source link
