It’s 2019 And Over 20 Million People Still Use ‘123456’ As Their Password

These days with the number of hacks and phishing scams that we are seeing, you would think that everyone would start securing their accounts with stronger passwords, 2FA, and maybe even use physical security keys. Unfortunately, the truth of the matter is that it seems that people haven’t or don’t want to change.

According to a recent survey conducted by the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), it seems that over 20 million people still use “123456” as their password, which in case you didn’t know, is probably one of the worst passwords you could use. That being said, we guess we can’t blame people for turning to something easy to remember.

After all, no one likes having to reset their passwords, especially if it is used with accounts that they don’t access too often. The NCSC’s survey also found that only 15% of those surveyed claimed to know how to protect themselves online, meaning that 85% of those survey don’t. Almost half of those surveyed (46%) also claim that information on how to secure their online accounts is “confusing”, which might explain why not many do it.

If you have yet to secure your online accounts, perhaps you might want to start reading up on how to create a strong password, and also maybe explore the idea of using password managers and enabling 2FA.

Tyler Lee
Categories: General
Tags: Hack, Security, study