According to a recent cybersecurity survey, a staggering amount of CEOs and business owners around the world are using absurdly weak and dangerously easy passwords. Passwords like “123456,” “12345,” “password,” “123456789,” and “qwerty” are among the most compromised passwords used by CEOs, according to new information from NordPass, a password manager, and independent researchers.
“123456” was determined to be implicated in over 1.1 million cybersecurity breaches globally, making it the most breached password used by CEOs, managers, business owners, and other high-ranking professionals. “Password” was another common option, with over 700,000 instances. According to the study, high-ranking company leaders frequently use their names as passwords, with Tiffany (used in 100,534), Charlie (33,699), Michael (10,647), and Jordan being the most prevalent (10,472).
Mythical creatures and animals were also a prominent motif, with passwords like “dragon” (11,926) and “monkey” (11,675) proving popular among compromised high-level executives. The researchers looked at over 290 million cybersecurity data breaches from throughout the world to come up with these conclusions. C-suite executives (such as CMOs, CROs, CTOs, and CFOs), firm owners, and managers were all given different passwords.
Many of the findings were consistent with larger patterns discovered by NordPass in prior study on regular internet users’ password choices. For example, it was recently uncovered that “dragon” was an incredibly popular password all around the world and was regularly used in data breaches. Sophisticated eavesdropping tactics aren’t necessarily the cause of data leaks. According to the Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report, easy-to-crack passwords are responsible for about 80% of data breaches. Human mistake, such as visiting a shady link, is connected to or directly causes many additional breaches.
The findings of the current analysis illustrate how every one of us can take some very easy actions that would greatly minimize our chances of getting hacked, according to Jonas Karklys, the CEO of NordPass (who probably has a very strong password). Specifically, use a password manager that can store passwords in end-to-end encrypted digital storage, implement cyber security training in the workplace, and enable multi-factor authentication as an additional layer of security, whether it’s through separate apps, security keys, devices, or biometric data.
“It’s incredible how similar we all think,” Karklys said in a statement to IFLScience. “What we would assume to be incredibly innovative, in reality, might rank us in the list of most common.” “Everyone from gaming teens to business owners is a target of cybercrime, with the exception that corporate organizations, on average, pay a bigger price for their ignorance.”
