There has been a precipitous rise in cybercrime over the past several years, which has caused many companies and individuals to tighten up their security measures. According to information on the Norton website (http://us.norton.com/cybercrime-definition), cybercrime has surpassed drug trafficking as a criminal moneymaker. A person’s identity is stolen EVERY THREE SECONDS these days. Cybercrimes include identity theft, fraud, bullying, pornography, and cyberstalking. Though there are distinct advantages to having greater connectivity across massive sea of computers and other electronic communication devices, we are more at risk of cybercrime than ever before.

Though changing our passwords constantly can be a nuisance, doing so can confer a bit more security. Many of us are getting far more creative and cryptic with our passwords, but there are people who apparently still use common passwords which are easy to guess. I saw this article on Yahoo! today and want to share the list of most common passwords for 2015. Thank you, Daniel Bean, for posting this information!

Here’s the link: https://www.yahoo.com/tech/123456-tops-yearly-list-of-most-common-passwords-073731649.html

And here’s the list:

Splash Data’s list of most common passwords for 2015

Splash Data has some tips for password selection:

1. Use passwords of eight characters or more with mixed types of characters.
2. Avoid using the same username/password combination for multiple websites.
3. Use a password manager such as SplashID to organize and protect passwords, generate random passwords, and automatically log into websites.

Just think of it. You can get truly creative with numbers, letters, and special characters. How nice of all those cyber criminals to drum up all those creative juices in your noggin! The only real problem with coming up with unique and cryptic passwords for countless websites is that you may forget your password. There are password managers such as SplashID which keep your passwords nice and safe, and which also generate passwords for you, but what if someone hacks into the password manager? Yikes.

I’m not trying to be cynical, but it almost seems impossible to generate a password which stumps experienced hackers. A frightening article by Dan Goodin, entitled “Anatomy of a hack: even your ‘complicated’ password is easy to crack”, was posted on wired.co.uk (link is: http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-05/28/password-cracking/viewall). The article reveals that even when we create long, complex passwords, most of them can be cracked.

If you think you’re being cute by typing patterns on the keyboard (qwertyuiop for example), just be aware that those types of passwords are embarrassingly easy to crack. If you make things personal, you are also setting yourself up for attack. So you might want to avoid using the name of your first dog when creating a crack-resistant password. Create something without rhyme or reason, try to remember it, and hope and pray that expert hackers don’t crack your code.