Depending on the number of different online accounts you need to log in to every day, you may have lost count of how many different passwords you have. To help with this issue, many people choose to use the same password for all of their accounts. However, for so many of us, our password-selecting skills are pretty weak.
Do you use your birthday? Is your password a loved one’s name? Are you typing in your favourite animal, colour or city? These are some of the most commonly-used ideas for passwords. As a result, far too many individuals get their accounts hacked into. As Tom Yun reports for CTV News, a large number of Canadians are using passwords that can easily be guessed.
What passwords are the most used in Canada?
Yun’s report highlights a list of the 200 most common passwords in Canada. Among the most common are “password” (how lazy can you get, right?), “qwerty” (the first six letters found in succession on your keyboard) and “abc123” (with all due respect to The Jackson 5, this is as lazy as it gets!)
“Canada” is apparently the 15th most common password used in the country, reports Yun. Evidently, our nation is pretty big on Canadiana. It appears that “toronto”, “montreal” and “canada1” are also commonly-used passwords in this great country of ours. You won’t likely be surprised to hear that “hockey” is the 11th most common password in Canada.
Which passwords are the most popular amongst women?
Passwords like “iloveyou,” “princess” and “sunshine” are among the most commonly-used passwords by women, reveals Yun. “The researchers also found that many Canadians were using their own names as their password,” he writes, “‘tiffany’ was the eighth-most-common password in Canada. Names like ‘maggie,’ ‘matthew,’ ‘bailey,’ ‘michelle’ and ‘andrew’ were also in the top 50.”
Included among the top 20 most common passwords in Canada are “123456” (and other variations of numbers in succession), “testing”, “111111” and “dragon”.
What is the problem with such easy-to-guess passwords?
As Yun notes, 144 out of the top 200 most common passwords in Canada can be cracked in less than a second. In fact, Canada reportedly has the eighth highest number of passwords leaked per capita. To prevent hacking, it is recommended that a unique password is used for every account. Secondly, to create a strong password, use at least 12 characters that include a combination of numbers, letters and symbols.
What does all this mean for the security of your accounts?
It’s imperative that you find a new solution to the too-many-passwords problem. Luckily for you, MeloTel has one! With LastPass, you will only need to know one password for the rest of your life. By logging into your LastPass account any time you need access to any of your online accounts, you will gain access to all of your online accounts by having your passwords inputted for you.
LastPass is all about security. This awesome service generates impossible-to-guess passwords that are comprised of numerous characters in a random pattern. You simply log in to your LastPass account to gain access to every other account you have. Each of them is kept secure without you having to remember how to log in to each one of them individually.
To begin taking advantage of LastPass, please don’t hesitate to call us at 1-888-MELOTEL or email support@melotel.com.
