This past Sunday, a group called Gnosis launched a massive hacker attack on Gawker media, one of the web's most popular blog networks (Lifehacker, Gizmodo, Jezebel, io9, Jalopnik, Kotaku, Deadspin and Fleshbot). 1.3 million registered users' passwords were compromised, and 188,279 of them were decoded and made public. The biggest takeaway? Many Gawker denizens use downright dumb passwords. (Guess they didn't see their own Lifehacker's story on avoiding such a thing.)
The Wall Street Journal analyzed the leaked data and published this list of the 50 most-popular Gawker Media passwords:
123456? password? abc123? 111111? Startlingly weak. If you, too, are guilty of this, it's time to make a change. Other websites such as Twitter, LinkedIn, and Yahoo, are requesting widespread password resets. From PC Mag, here are four fairly obvious pointers so coming up with a strong password:
1. Diversify your bonds: You have different accounts, so why not different passwords? Mix it up. Ensure that if one of your accounts gets hacked, the rest stay secure.
2. Keep a lid on it: Keep your passwords to yourself.
3. Pump up your password strength: Substitute numbers for letters. Use the caps. Or go Da Vinci and spell words backwards.
4. Update your wardrobe regularly: There's a fashion for every season. There also ought to be a password. Every time you buy a new pair of socks, change your passwords.
For more detailed information, check out PC Mag's full article on Password Protection.
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11 Comments
Well, as long as people aren't also using those passwords for their online bank accounts...I suppose the fallout shouldn't be too bad.
password as a PASSWORD, hahahaha!
check out the high ranking of "monkey"....
seriously... monkey?!
My passwords generally consist of a few words and numbers that have no relevance to anything.
my password is jello
some people would rly laugh their asses if i was serious ^^
There must be a lot of Michaels, Jennifers, and Michelles on Gawker sites...
LMAO @ letmein.
The most common passwords are insane, as in pathetically trite. Maybe pathetic should be everyone's password of choice now.
It is seriously not hard to remember a 64-bit password, which is a combination of 8 capitalized / lowercased letters and numbers, at all. It shall be burned into your memory especially when you entrust like 10 different accounts with the same string. On another note: I recently read an article where a phrase could be used as a base. Something like "My daughter is 7 and her name is Kathy" --> mD=7&NiK and perhaps for Ebay / Bank --> md=7&NiE / md=7&NiB
that's a pretty good idea, and much better than the more common practice of using birthdays
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