Bad Passwords cost money and cause trouble

I thought this would be an interesting read and do have some relevance for our smartphones.

There was a tweet where a top NFL draft pick was "taking a hit" off a bong through a gas mask. Which ended up costing him upwards of $13 million. That draft picks Twitter account was allegedly hacked just minutes before the draft began, making his ranking from the first round to thirteenth swift, decisive, and very costly. Then his Instagram account was hacked displaying screenshots implicating rule-breaking that will likely end up in an investigation.

This has a lesson for the rest of us.

We know from the headlines, that people don’t manage their passwords. Users fail to create strong passwords and they certainly don’t change their passwords once they’re set.  Even though their sensitive data, potentially embarrassing situations, or marriage is at stake. Hackers don't even choose secure passwords.

Still a good amount of people don't know how to create a strong password, due to frustration or just don't care. It's proven by a list of the most commonly used passwords, complied by security researchers. Here are the top 10 passwords researchers found from leaked data distributed publicly online.

1. 123456
2. 123456789
3. password
4. 101
5. 12345678
6. 12345
7. Password1
8. qwerty
9. 1234
10. 111111

It includes simple passwords, like 123456 (the all-time favorite), password, and qwerty. Lower in the list is another favorite, iloveyou (#19), along with trustno1 (#57), which is ironic being on a most popular passwords list.

There is no better time to get passwords under control. Follow these tips to keep your passwords strong and safe:

• Make long and strong passwords
• Use unique passwords for every account
• Don’t casually share your passwords
• Change your passwords regularly
• Let a Password Manager memorize your passwords
• Lock you mobile with a PIN password, Pattern password, Picture password,
  
• Stop using one word passwords
• Enable multi-factor authentication - on this one, I use both a pin and fingerprint as well as on a computer receive a text pin to verify when logging in to a site like for banking.
  

"Now, you may think that leaked passwords alone aren’t critical – however, about 50% of leaked passwords included an email attached to the account,” said Avast researcher Michal Salat. “We know that people use the same email and password combination on different accounts. So if a hacker knows your Ashley Madison password, they will also know your password for Facebook, Amazon, eBay, etc."