Funny things people do with their accounts

People do funny things very often. They expect systems exist, rules and regulatins exist to take care of them, which is why they need not really bother about their own security.

For example, Splashdata’s annual list showws that the most common passwords these days are:

1 123456 Up 1

2 password Down 1

3 12345678 Unchanged

4 qwerty Up 1

5 abc123 Down 1

6 123456789 New

7 111111 Up 2

8 1234567 Up 5

9 iloveyou Up 2

10 adobe123 New

11 123123 Up 5

12 admin New

13 1234567890 New

14 letmein Down 7

15 photoshop New

16 1234 New

17 monkey Down 11

18 shadow Unchanged

19 sunshine Down 5

20 12345 New

21 password1 Up 4

22 princess New

23 azerty New

24 trustno1 Down 12

25 000000 New

People still use such passwords. Considering that people need to manage many accounts these days, this would seem normal, even acceptable. But it is not. The practice is an invitation to hackers for doing stupid things with their computer accounts. Mistakes such as these will definitely impact the career of an employee if such vulnerabilities are actually exploited. People all over the world wait for such opportunities to present themselves patiently. Passwords should be the last line of defence.

Browsers these days allow people to remember passwords for them. What many people do not realize is that these passwords are cleartext characters. Anyone can see them once the actual user keys in the system password and leaves the system unattended for even two or three minutes.

Its high time people realize that complacency does not always help. One needs to be careful. One needs to make sure that ones life is not easy to invade and disrupt. One need not consult any specialist in security to discuss this. Just the way no one leaves the cookie jar open, no one leaves the safe open, likewise one should not leave the computer open.