Gallup’s 2014 survey found that Americans are more afraid of being hacked than any other crime. We are concerned about our credit card information and medical records, as well as our email and personal information. This is a valid concern.
More than one billion personal records were illegally accessed in 2014.
Yahoo revealed that hackers stole personal data from over 500 million accounts in 2016.
The question is: Are you vulnerable? Are your passwords secure? Are you keeping your personal information private?
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Start training We examined passwords for easy-to-guess and root words.
Here’s what we found.
The 30 Most Common Passwords
The most common words in the 50,000 passwords that we analysed were: love, star, girl angel, rock, miss hell, Mike, and John. Hackers are known for using common words to steal passwords. We recommend that you avoid these words or, even better, use nonsense words and letter-number combinations.
Who is at risk from these hacks?
It is a no-no to use names in your passwords
Unsurprisingly, the most popular names of those who were hacked are also some of the most commonly known in America. John/Jonathan (Mike/Michael), Chris/Christopher and John/Jonathan are the leaders. Dave/David is the leader.
Based on our data, men were slightly more likely to be hacked. Interestingly, the hacking rate was four times higher for those aged 25-34 than for any other age group. They are also the most likely to be named Mike or Chris, John, John, or Dave.
Business Insider reports that millennials were raised with an Internet-based third parent. Perhaps they didn’t get online security tips as a child.
Surprisingly, certain states are more secure than other states.
Are some states more secure than others?
According to the data, yes.
With an average of 28.71 password leaks per 100,000 inhabitants, Hawaii was the home of most of our leaked passwords. This is more than six times higher than the national average (4.67) and a 58 per cent increase over the next most risky state (18.18).
Hawaii isn’t the only state that has a higher-than average risk. According to our analysis, 15 states have this distinction. Hawaii is the top state, but California, Nevada, Washington, and New York are close behind.
Password Faux Pas – Who’s Using Their Own Names for Passwords?
While using personal data for a password is a bad idea, using your name to create a password is even worse. There are worse passwords. 1234567890 may still be a good choice. It’s not enough to carry your luggage, so why should it be sufficient for your bank account?
While many users are aware that name-password combinations can be insecure, more 42 percent of the 50,000 passwords leaked included usernames, passwords or real names. What are the worst offenders?
People named Amy, Lisa Scott, Mark, or Laura.
While Amys and Lisas might be the worst offenders in the name/in-my-password group, overall men are more likely to fall into this trap than women – 20 out of the 25 largest offenders on the list were typical male names.
Unsurprisingly, the most popular names for those who hack are also the most common. John, Michael and Joseph are some of the most popular first names in the country.
Is Your Email Provider Safe?
Which email providers have suffered the greatest breaches of passwords?
Based on our data, Yahoo! is the clear winner. Yahoooo had nearly three times the number of hacked email accounts than any other email provider.
Hotmail was the next most frequently hacked email provider, followed by Gmail.
AOL, an internet veteran, was the least hackable email provider. Despite the fact that AOL users were actually m.
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