NordPass has released its annual country-wise list of the Top 200 Most Common Passwords, which shows that people still use weak passwords to protect their accounts.
There’s been a significant surge in cyberattacks all over the world, following the move to work-from-home setup at an unprecedented level. However, the list of the most common passwords is a clear indication that despite growing cybersecurity awareness, old habits die hard.
The most common password across all the 30 countries polled is password. It takes over the top spot from 123456, which slid to the runner-up spot after ruling the roost in both 2021 and 2020.
However, the positions are reversed in Saudi Arabia, with 123456 at the top, followed by the password and pass1478 rounding out the podium. In fact, a majority of the top 20 common passwords in Saudi Arabia are numeric, such as 123123, 121212, 112233, 123321, and so on.
Read more: Email cyberattacks on Arab countries rise in lead up to World Cup
Interestingly, the password trends in Saudi Arabia between men and women varied significantly. While the top two spots match the global leaderboard, the rest of the table differs significantly. For instance, elsinnary was the third most popular password used by females in Saudi Arabia. This was followed by shwoshwo at number 4, pomenka at number 8, wabileen at number 9, and nouf1234 and number 10.
For Saudi Arabian males, the top 6 common passwords aren’t really surprising. However, aerosoc at number 7, mahmud at number 8, asadfaiz at number 9, and qudsia1957 at number 10 don’t appear in the global list.
Batten down the hatches
The report also suggests some ways to maintain good password hygiene.
For starters, a password according to Nordpass should ideally contain 12 characters at the minimum, with a mixture of upper- and lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols. Experts suggest that while this still doesn’t always ensure that the password can’t be cracked, if used effectively, the task of breaking it could become computationally intensive, dissuading most hackers.
Nord suggests using a password generator to construct a strong password or using a password manager, all of which usually do include one as well.
However, you might not need to follow any of this advice in the near future, since passkeys are here to make passwords a thing of the past entirely.
In simple terms, a passkey gets rid of the legacy password text box on an app or a website that supports them. Instead of passwords, passkeys store a secret and then pass that secret to the app or website, which when verified logs you in.
The passkey functionality is supported by all the big platform vendors including Google, Apple, and Microsoft. In fact, it has already been rolled into the latest version of Chrome released last week.
“Passkeys are a significantly safer replacement for passwords and other phishable authentication factors. They cannot be reused, don’t leak in server breaches, and protect users from phishing attacks,” said Ali Sarraf, Product Manager, Chrome in a blog post announcing the feature.
