123456 was the most used passwords in 2019.
As 2019 came to an end, we got the opportunity to look back and analyze the various cyberattacks that occurred in the past year and what it means for the future. One such analysis has been compiled by SpyCloud which looks at the numerous data breaches that occurred, various attack vectors used, and how users could guard against them.
To start with data breaches, a total of 640 breaches were recorded resulting in a recovery of over 9 billion login credentials. These were composed up of usernames & email address associated with their respective passwords.
As a result, attackers could gain access to one’s highly sensitive information including Personally Identifiable Information(PII) & financial information which could be used to steal funds.
Moreover, since many users re-use the same passwords for their other accounts, this creates a multiplier effect where unauthorized access of one account paves the way for others. This is backed by the fact that the report found 28% of users that had re-used one or more passwords out of which “94 percent of those reused passwords being exact matches.”
See: Here is a list of top 25 worst passwords of 2019
The rest of the 6% although not exactly the same could be identified by attackers using certain tools as they were variations of the original password.
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