Protection against cybercrime: The search for safe passwords

It’s been said the only absolutely safe computers, iPads or smartphones are those without an internet connection, thus rendering them useless but ensuring complete protection from the cyber criminals responsible for sucking an estimated global total of €541.3bn a year from personal and corporate bank accounts.

The only defence users have is the password which, as we are told repeatedly, should be at least 10 characters, comprise a mix of letters and numbers with no suggestion of a simple alphanumeric pattern, different for all of your 27 website and email accounts, give no hint of what might be the names of pets, birthdays and favourite cities, and — to make things really stress-free — easily remembered.

While Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg might find this child’s play — even if their systems are not always impenetrable — it’s a formula far too challenging for the unwired computers the rest of us have in our heads. It’s no surprise, then, to see what SplashData found when it looked at the more than 5m passwords leaked online this year. It ranked the worst of these and showed their position compared to last year.

The most popular rubbish password was ‘123456’, which has topped the list for the sixth successive year. In second place is the much more imaginative ‘123456789’. In at third place is the inspirational ‘qwerty’, followed by the ingenious ‘password’.

The company’s hope is by publishing this list, computer users will be convinced of the need to protect themselves when online. That gives optimism a whole new meaning.