Hackers target peoples easy passwords across Staffordshire and Cheshire
New research shows almost half use a pet's name or a significant date
We are hearing about a rise in hackers gaining access to devices and online accounts across Staffordshire and Cheshire due to weak passwords.
New research shows almost half of people use a significant date or a pet's name across the UK.
New research by the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) shows we are extremely predictable from a scammer’s perspective, with almost half using a significant date (21%) or a pet’s name (20%) as the topic of our passwords.
65% of people in the UK admit they are scared about being hacked in the future, with 84% thinking hackers are becoming more inventive. Yet only a fifth of people (20%) are able to correctly identify a secure password over a compromised one which can be cracked by a computer in less than a second, and 20% admit to having just one password for multiple websites and devices.
38% believing replacing letters with numbers e.g. p4$$w0rd is more secure when thinking about a password, with 45% believing it makes them harder to guess.
65% of people think passwords should never be written down, despite advice from cybersecurity experts, and 77% think changing passwords frequently makes them more secure, despite GCHQ recommending against this practice.
p4$$w0rd is in dictionaries of common passwords, so it can be cracked in less than a second. If you use the same password for every website and the password is breached from one site, all sites can be compromised without the attacker needing to try any other passwords - this is known as credential stuffing.
Top tips on boosting security
• Use randomly generated, long, unique passwords for each website.
• Enable Two-Factor Authentication where possible.
• Use a password manager to store your passwords for you and tell you when they have been in a data breach.
The threat is ever growing with 40% of 16-24-year-olds (Generation Z) and more than a third (37%) of 25-34-year-olds (Millennials) admitting to being impacted by cybercrime.
In fact, even those who haven’t been impacted are being targeted regularly, with a fifth (21%) of people receiving a scam email every day, 73% thinking hackers are becoming harder to detect and 41% admitting they wouldn’t know what to do if they’d been hacked.