More than half use the same password for different accounts

A SpyCloud survey found that approximately 65 percent of all Internet users still use the same password for multiple accounts. This remains a major risk, because hackers can use a password to penetrate different accounts.

data leaks

SpyCloud collected 1.7 billion passwords and usernames from more than 750 data breaches. After analyzing this data, they concluded in a report that the majority of internet users use the same passwords for different accounts. A large number of these people do not realize the risks this entails. If one of your passwords appears in a data breach, multiple accounts of yours are at risk. If each password is unique, that risk is much lower.

SpyCloud also mentions that a large part of the passwords are often still too simple. For example, many people use names of famous people, their pets, their children, and so on for their passwords. Characters from Netflix and Disney+ series also remain popular. The most common are Loki, Falcon and Wanda. Such a password with only lowercase and uppercase letters can be cracked by a cybercriminal within 4 milliseconds. There are websites such as safeinternets.nl, where you can test how long it takes for your password to be cracked. Don’t worry, you don’t have to enter your effective password for this. You only indicate how many characters and what kind of characters it contains. From 11 characters it can take more than 200 years before your password is cracked. So a lot safer.

Securing your passwords

Making your password more secure is simple. You can create a longer and more complex password yourself or you can use help. For example, most browsers, such as Chrome, currently have their own password manager. Those password managers randomly generate difficult and strong passwords. You can choose whether to use it or not. They also automatically save your passwords after you give permission for this. Don’t trust Google with your passwords? Then you can always opt for a third-party app such as Dashlane and 1Password.

Another tool that keeps passwords more secure is multi-factor authentication (MFA). An example of this is two-step verification. This security makes it virtually impossible to log in with a password, username or email address alone. If you want to log in, you need a physical device to confirm that it is really you. A remote hacker can therefore do practically ‘nothing’.

Microsoft recently announced that MFA is only used by just under 22 percent of all Azure Active Directory customers. While according to Microsoft MFA would prevent almost any criminal attempt to log in. MFA is therefore not yet used enough and many organizations have not yet implemented it.

Do you use a password manager or MFA? Let us know in the comments at the bottom of this article.

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