How To Generate A Secure Password: A New Study Gives Insights Into Hacking Methodology

First Posted: Nov 08, 2016 05:50 AM EST

Is my password secured? Has my password leaked? These questions arise on a daily basis for us average internet users. A recent study has shown that our passwords may not be as secured as we think.

Passwords are required for everything; from Facebook to internet banking everything needs a password. To make their life easier, several users pick obvious passwords. Using passwords such as '12345678' or 'password' makes life easy for hackers.

The most common password from the leaked Yahoo database was, wait for it, yes, 'password.' That is the easiest combination for hackers to get access to your data. According to a study at Lancaster University, other common passwords were, 'querty' and 'abc123' which are obviously too easy to guess. Dr Jeff Yan, co-author of a paper on password guessing, said,

"Why do [some] use such obvious passwords? The main reason I think is that they're either unaware of or don't understand the risks of online security."

According to the researchers, users use the obvious passwords in spite of the knowledge that these were not secure. The top passwords in the leaked Yahoo data also included passwords such as sunshine, welcome,123456, algorithm and Ninja. The researcher also tried to see how secure are the passwords by creating algorithms to guess the password based on various personal information of the user.

The algorithms were able to guess the password more than 73 percent for the regular users like us. Think you are tech savvy and have a different password ?

In the same study, 33 percent of the passwords were guessed for the users who did not have personal information as passwords. So next time before asking the questions Is my password secured? Has my password leaked? Make sure you have taken all the precautions. To make a sure password it is advisable to use an upper case, a lower case, a number and a symbol. All of which has nothing to do with your personal information.

Stay safe and stay secure. Do let us know in the comment section, how do you ensure a secure password. Let us help each other and make internet a better place.