Today is May 4, which has become Star Wars Day (May the Fourth Be With You) over the past several years for fans of the sci-fi franchise to celebrate George Lucas's creation. As it so happens, this year, May 4 is also World Password Day, which is held annually on the first Thursday in May. It was first created in 2013 by Intel to raise awareness of having strong passwords.
While companies like Google are trying to move people into a password-less future, most consumers still use them to sign in to retail websites, their banks, and other sensitive parts of the internet. Every year, the password manager company NordPass creates a list of the 200 most used passwords of the past year, and they have recently done that for 2022.
Near the bottom of that list, at 196, is "starwars". Yes, lots of people use "starwars" as a password. It's also a bad one to use. Most passwords on NordPass's list can take less than a second for a hacker to crack.
Here's a look at the top 10 most used passwords for personal use in 2022, according to NordPass:
- password
- 123456
- 123456789
- guest
- qwerty
- 12345678
- 111111
- 12345
- col123456
- 123123
In that list, eight of the top 10 can be cracked in less than a second. The exceptions are "guest" which can be cracked in 10 seconds, and "col123456" which can be hacked in 11 seconds.
Besides "starwars" the full 200 most used password list includes some more from pop culture, including "pokemon" at 107, "eminem" at 178, and "batman" at 185. All of them can be hacked in less than a second.
NordPass offers some common-sense ways to protect your information. The biggest one is to create complex passwords with at least 12 characters and a mix of upper and lower-case letters, numbers, and symbols. You should also not use the same password on each of the sites or apps you access with such a system. You should also audit your passwords and sites regularly and finally use some kind of password manager so you can access all of them quickly.
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