The most popular passwords on Instagram. How to come up with one hell of a password that's easy to remember

2015 began with Julia writing some materials for paranoids. I have no idea how this happened. But since it’s in the cards, today I will share with you information about the most popular user passwords in the past year. And if among this set of numbers and letters you find yours, know that it’s time to change it urgently!

And despite the fact that the digital blog “123456” still holds the palm in the list of the most not only bad, but common, and therefore unreliable passwords, the company SplashData has published its annual list of objectionable passwords. On January 20, the company’s speakers gave a presentation in California, and it seems to me that it was both witty and very serious. Surely, when they saw the list of the most popular passwords, security specialists laughed very loudly at human naivety. In order to keep your information safe and electronic wallets on lock, does not necessarily acquire wonderful devices. Just use passwords. And not the simplest. And you don’t need to set the same password for all accounts, from unlocking your computer to your Facebook account.

Actually, the list of the 25 most popular passwords looks like this:

123456
12345 – became more popular by 17 (!) points
12345678
qwerty
123456789
1234 – became more popular by 9 points
baseball – new
dragon – new
football – new
1234567
monkey – became more popular by 5 points
letmein
abc123 – has become less popular by 9 points, which is good
111111 – became less popular by 8 points, that’s good
mustang – new
access – new
shadow
master – new
michael – new
superman – new
696969 – new
123123 – became less popular by 12 points, that’s good
batman – new
trustno1

Using one of these passwords to protect your device is the same as if you didn’t put any password on it at all. During the year, more than 3.3 million passwords were leaked. And the user error report was actually based on this data. The 25 most used passwords account for 2.2% of unsecured passwords. And, as Mark Burnett, a security specialist, notes, this is the lowest percentage in the company's four years of operation.

if it is not possible to protect your gadget with a fingerprint, use a password. Always use it.
If you have many accounts and devices that require a password, do not set the same one for everyone. It's better to use a data storage application service, PasswordBox for example.
Do not use digital passwords exclusively. It is better that it contains letters, numbers, signs, and also in different registers.
passwords based simple models It is very easy to calculate on a keyboard (such as QWERTYUIOP or 1QAZ2WSX), they are wildly popular because they are remembered by mechanical memory.
do not use your hobbies when creating passwords - football and baseball are new words this year, but still.
say “NO!” year and date of birth in your password. And also the dates of important days in your life, such as the birth of children, third divorce or mother-in-law’s birthday.
do not use the names of family and friends.
and yes - the names of popular artists and athletes, names of brands and films, as well as popular expressions are also included in the list of “bad” passwords, albeit in a more extended version.

So be vigilant and creative. And if you are too creative, and there are so many accounts that you can’t remember them all, write down the passwords in a document called “DOCUMENT WITH IMPORTANT PASSWORDS” and everyone will be happy! (of course not). Nothing was said about this in the report, but I will still clarify - write down passwords from bank card in a notebook that you constantly carry with you, taking photos and storing in a gallery, writing on a napkin and sticking it on the refrigerator or on a business card and putting it in your wallet is NOT WORTH it. For this, there are password messengers or limitless palaces of the mind where they should be stored. And if you haven’t looked yet, we reminded you of a couple of basic rules of conduct on the Internet that we sometimes forget about:

Imagine: someone could break into your apartment in real life or even worse - get into your head, read or change your thoughts. Good prospect? Would you try to protect yourself from it?

Accounts on websites, social networks, programs are your electronic identities, and passwords are the only way to protect them from external influence. But the vast majority of people do not give them even a fraction of respect. As statistics have shown, the most popular passwords in Russia they are so simple that even a child can open them.

What not to do

This article, of course, was written not for self-taught burglars, but for the most ordinary users. They should know what these passwords look like and avoid them at all costs. There are several simple rules, how not to do it if you want to keep your accounts intact. Otherwise, you will then have to apologize to friends and colleagues for sending spam and viruses. Here are the most important rules:

One account – one password. On different accounts passwords must be different. Using one is a good help for burglars.
The longer the better. The password must be at least 8 characters long. Better - more than 10. Or 12.
There is strength in diversity. A strong password should combine not only numbers, but also letters and symbols. If possible, it is worth changing the register. Remembering this, of course, is more difficult, but also hacking.
What is written with a pen... The worst idea is to write down the password on paper and store it in your wallet or near your work computer. If you are unable to keep several combinations in memory, then it is better to use special programs for their storage.
If a password has meaning, it is meaningless as a password. Sacramental “mother’s maiden name”, “first pet’s name” and others standard options– with social networks and blogs, their protective ability has become extremely low.

The rules, as you can see, are quite simple, but few people follow them. At least that's what the statistics say.

What are most often used as passwords in Russia?

Did you come up with your password this way too?

Only a small part of users use combinations of symbols, as expected. Others use meaningful passwords. And in Russia they most often use the following groups:

Date of Birth. It is clear that it is impossible to forget your date of birth, but it is not difficult to find it. Some cunning comrades remember their children, parents, husbands/wives. A little more interesting, but also ineffective.
Phone number. The length of such a password is its advantage, but the lack of symbols, and most importantly - simple opportunity finding it is a big minus.
Pet name. Very popular passwords, easy to remember, but just as easy to crack.
Combinations of numbers and letters located next to each other. Very frequent passwords, we will talk about them separately.
Logical. To many people, the password “password” seems like an original and witty solution. The burglars are very grateful to them for this.

And there are quite a lot of similar examples. The most common passwords are neither elegant, nor original, nor resistant malware and programmers.

The most common options in Russia

As already mentioned, most often users in Russia simply use combinations of buttons located nearby. This, of course, reduces the time it takes to come up with, remember and enter a password. But it makes hacking your account just as easy. Often, attackers only need to sort through a dozen of the most common keys to find the right one. Such lists are obtained by analyzing the databases of accounts on visited sites. And here is one example:

12345
123456
11111
55555
77777
qwerty
111111
00000
666666
123456789
123321
1234567
123123
gfhjkm
7777777
qwert
22222
555555
33333

Interestingly, such passwords are popular in Russia. In other countries, a similar list would look slightly different:

password1
abc123
myspace1
password
blink182
qwerty1
fuckyou
123abc
baseball1
football1
soccer
monkey1
liverpool1
princess1
Jordan23
slipknot1
superman1
iloveyou1
princess1
Jordan23

If, by an absurd chance, you see your password in this list, we advise you to change it immediately. Of course, if you want to protect your personal data from intruders. If not, put the password “123456” on your WebMoney wallet and check your luck.

We often talk in step by step instructions site site that passwords need to be created strong, long and complex. But what does all this mean in practice?

Let's understand the topic of creating strong passwords right now and learn how to create good passwords that attackers cannot crack.

Let us immediately note that none of the following tips provides 100% protection against hacking or theft. There is simply no such method in the world that would guarantee accurate protection against scammers!

If hack professionals want to get your password, they will do it, but strong passwords can weed out some newbies and non-specialists, complicate the task of hacking your account and greatly spoil the nerves of attackers, and therefore there is still a point in good passwords.

How do scammers find out your password?

There are several ways to obtain your secret password:

1. Simple theft, theft, password theft:

through special programs
over the Internet,
through fake websites
through fake programs,
through access to your computer or the sheet of paper on which you write down passwords,
finally, through blackmail, torture and interrogation (the latter is a joke, of course, but some girls actually use these methods to extract their boyfriends’ passwords in order to control their correspondence!).

Often these scammers can disguise their goals as completely harmless, for example, you are asked to provide your profile login information in order to enter the program or to confirm your registration or unlock your profile.

2. Social engineering. The essence of the method includes a logical approach and analysis of your person, identifying your personal information (year of birth, names of loved ones, passport details, telephone numbers, names of relatives, names of pets...).

3. Simple search through dictionaries. The simplest and stupidest way that still manages to hack simple passwords, consisting of dictionary words, popular combinations like 123456789 or abcdef or qwert. Here, a program with a built-in dictionary is actually launched and dictionary combinations are searched.

4. Brute search. Similar to the previous method, but includes all possible combinations in general. The system tries any values, and the fraudster hopes for luck that some options may coincide.

Considering the speed of such search (about 100,000 or even 1,000,000 combinations per minute), the probability of a match is quite high.

How to create/come up with a good password

A strong password should:

a) consist of letters and numbers;
b) have 8 or more characters;
c) contain both uppercase (lower case) and lower case;
d) include symbols (not alphanumeric characters);
e) do not coincide with any dictionary word (in all languages).

To quickly create a good password, we would advise taking a memorable phrase or expression that has nothing to do with you and typing it without spaces. English layout.

At the same time, it is necessary to dilute this phrase simple symbols and numbers, but in such a way that it is illogical. After this, all that remains is to replace a few lowercase letters with uppercase ones, and the job is done, a good password is ready. But all this is easier to understand with examples.

EXAMPLE of creating a good password #1

Step #1

Let's take the same phrase " strong password", we type it in the English layout, we get "yflt; ysq gfhjkm".

Step #2

Now we remove the space between the words and replace a couple of lowercase letters with capital ones, we get “yflt;ysQgfhjKm”.

Step #3

Now let’s add a couple of numbers, for example, at the beginning and end of the phrase, we get “2yflt;ysQgfhjKm1”

TOTAL: our password has 16 characters, there are uppercase and lowercase letters, there are numbers and symbols, there are no dictionary words! This is a good and strong password that is easy to remember using the phrase “2Secure Password1” (only without a space in the center).

EXAMPLE of creating a good password #2

Step #1

Let’s take the following phrase “peace be at home”, type it in the English layout, and get “vbh ljve”.

Step #2

Now let’s remove the space between the words and replace a couple of lowercase letters with capital ones, we get “vBhljVe” (replaced the 2nd from the left and 2nd from the right letters in the phrase).

Step #3

Now let’s add numbers, for example, at the end of the phrase, we get “vBhljVe21”.

Step #4

Let’s complicate the passphrase with some symbol, but not between words, but after the first letter, to make it illogical, we get “v~BhljVe21”

TOTAL: our password has 10 characters, there are uppercase and lowercase letters, there are numbers and symbols, there are no dictionary words. This is how the phrase “peace at home” turns into a cool and complex password for us! And it's easy to remember.

The more illogical and unusual your password creation techniques are, the more secure it will be!

It's so easy to create a complex and secure password that will protect your profile well from simple hacking. At the same time, it is worth remembering that for different sites you should create different passwords, and all of them must comply with the above requirements.

If you ignore these tips, you will use simple combinations, personal data or dictionary words, the same passwords everywhere, don’t be surprised if your profiles are hacked, we warned you….

And under no circumstances enter passwords on sites or programs that raise even the slightest doubt! After all, it’s easier for an attacker to steal your password than to guess it.

Experts in computer security from the University of Cambridge analyzed the structure of more than 70 million passwords. And they found out that the most complex passwords in the world there are users from Germany and Korea. Moreover, they do it at ease and naturally, without special training. And the secret of the stability of combinations lies in the specifics of their language. They use the same Latin symbols, the same numbers, but take as a basis their native “difficult” words - names, toponyms, terms, etc. For example, Annaberg-Buchholz#122. It’s easy to come up with and remember these options, but choosing them is much more difficult compared to vocabulary words in other languages.

If you, dear reader, do not know Korean or German, this, of course, does not mean that you should ignore complex passwords. They are the key to the security of your data on the Internet (in online payment systems, on websites, forums). This article will tell you what the key requirements for accessing your account must be (what it should be) and how to create it.

Definition of Difficulty

Key complexity is a measure of resistance to selection at the symbolic level using manual and automated methods (logical calculation, dictionary selection). It is determined by the number of attempts the cracker makes, that is, how much time it will take him to calculate the combination compiled by the user.

The following factors affect password complexity:

The number of characters in the key. The more characters in the sequence, the better. A combination of 5 characters has a high probability of being hacked quickly. But selecting a sequence of 20 characters can take years, decades and even centuries.
Alternating uppercase and lowercase letters. Examples: the dfS123UYt key using capital letters is an order of magnitude more complex than the same combination, but only with small letters - dfs123uyt.
Character sets. A variety of symbol types enhances stability. If you make a key from small and capital letters, numbers and special characters 15-20 characters long, there is practically no chance of picking it up.

How to make stable combinations?

The following methods will help you come up with a very complex symbolic key that is easy to remember.

1. Create visual outlines geometric figure or any object on your computer keyboard. And then type the characters along which the lines go.

Attention! Avoid simple “designs” - lines, squares or diagonals. They are easy to predict.

2. Make up a complex sentence that defies logic. In other words, some pun:

For example: Vaska the cat caught a pike on Jupiter.

Then take the first 2-3 letters of each word from the made-up sentence:
Cat + Va + Na + Yup + st + pike

Type the syllables in Latin letters:
Rjn + Df + Yf + >g + ek + oer

After transliteration, insert between the syllables some numbers that are familiar to you: date of birth, height, weight, age, last or first digits of a telephone number.
Rjn066Df 45Yf 178>g 115ek1202oer

That's all! As you can see, it turned out to be a rather “strong” combination. To remember it quickly, you only need the key (pun sentence) and the numbers used.

3. Take 2 memorable dates as a basis. For example, two birthdays (yours and your loved one).
12.08.1983 05.01.1977

Separate the date, month and year with some special characters:
12|08/1983|05\01|1977

Now replace the zeros in the dates with a small letter “o”.
12|o8/1983|o5\o1|1977

It turns out to be a rather intricate key.

4. Make a special table: place the matrix vertically and horizontally letters and numbers, and in rows and columns - symbols in a chaotic order.

To generate a key, take several simple words, recorded in English letters, for example, my password is very strong

Take the first pair of letters. In our case it is “my”. Find “m” in the vertical list and “y” in the horizontal list. At the intersection of the lines you will receive the first character of the password.

In the same way, through next pairs, find the rest of the key characters.

If you forget your password, use the simple keyword and a table.

How to check password strength?

Sustainability character combination for selection can be found on special web services. Let's consider the most popular:

Online service from antivirus laboratory Kaspersky. Determines, based on the character set and length of the key, how long it will take to crack it on various computers. After analyzing the sequence, the statistics display the time for searching on the ZX-Spectrum (the legendary 8-bit machine of the 80s), Mac Book Pro (2012 models), the Tianhe-2 supercomputer and the Conficker botnet network.

Online utility on the huge service portal 2IP.ru. After sending the key to the server, it displays its status (trusted, unreliable) and the time spent on cracking it.

Internet users have become smarter over the past few years. No seriously. If earlier my friends complained about the constant hacking of their mailboxes or pages on social networks such as VKontakte or Odnoklassniki, today they come up with such a problem much less often. Last but not least, this has to do with the password - the most important part any account, which for some reason is very often neglected. And in vain.

Imagine that you have a page on a social network or, for example, an account on Skype. If some attacker gains access to the same Skype, he can spend cash, located on your account. At the same time, you will not be able to present anything to the company itself, since you are responsible for your account. Or another case - someone opened yours and started sending spam to your friends. Who might benefit from this? No one, and only you will be to blame.

But before we start talking about main topic our article today, I would like to make a small digression. I want to tell you that even an extremely complex password consisting of 50 characters cannot protect you if you neglect simple rules security. Why?

The first reason is that you save the password in the browser. Never, remember, never, under any circumstances, do this! There is a type of Trojan that, when it reaches the user’s computer, checks the saved contents of the browser and, if saved data is found, transfers the information to the attacker, without you even knowing about it! Therefore, always write down all important data (the same password) in a diary or on a piece of paper to which only you have access.

The second reason: it is a continuation of the first. If someone has obtained data from your account in social network, then he will probably try to use this password on other resources where you are also registered. This is why some users so easily lose their mailboxes— they use the same password everywhere! You can't do that! For each site, create your own unique combination of symbols!

The third reason: phishing sites. Alas, not one of us is immune from them. A phishing site is a fake site whose design completely copies some popular resource. Very often, for example, the same “VKontakte” fakes - you go to its exact copy, which is not located on the domain vk.com, but, say, on vkkkk.com. After you enter your profile data, it will instantly go to the attacker, although you yourself will not be able to access your page - after all, this is a completely different site, only outwardly similar to VK! Therefore, always pay close attention domain names sites where you enter your valuable login and password. (You can also get to the phishing site through the shift hosts file, but we'll talk about that next time).

The fourth reason: keyloggers. Keylogger is small program, launched, as a rule, without notifying the user, which remembers all his actions: every keystroke, mouse movement, etc. Most often, keyloggers are used by jealous people who want to catch their significant other writing a love letter to an unknown person, but such programs often end up on the computer from world wide web and are used by bad guys to steal data, because everything typed on the keyboard is saved in a file, which is then sent to the attackers.

Are you tired yet? I hope not, but modern reality is a very cruel thing and you need to be prepared for it. These are just a few of the main reasons why people lose access to their accounts. Therefore, follow the rules that we wrote about just above and then you risk getting into similar situation will be reduced to a minimum.

How to come up with a complex password?

Well, friends, now we move on to the most interesting part, namely, we will learn how to create complex passwords. In fact, there is nothing new in the system that will be discussed below, it’s just that many users are not even aware of it.

Where to begin? Perhaps this is why - the minimum number of characters cannot be less than 8. Why exactly 8? According to recent studies, words of 7 digits or less are selected much faster than words of 8, not to mention something larger (for some reasons the difference in selection time is very large). However, we advise you to slightly increase the number of digits to at least 12-14 - in this case, it will be almost impossible to select symbols programmatically, it will take years!

So, now about the most important thing. Take something simple Russian word. Let's say the word is "wallet." Now we take it and write it on the English layout, that is, we have succeeded, evf;ybr. An excellent set of characters, it must be noted. Now at the beginning or at the end we add one capital letter- V. It turns out V,evf;ybr. Quite good, but that's not all. In the final part we add some any number, for example, the year of your birth is 1975. The final password is: V,evf;ybr1975. It has 13 characters, including letters of different cases, numbers and Special symbols. Believe me, it will be so difficult for an attacker to find this word that he, most likely, will not even be able to do it!

The password, which you can see just above, is given for informational purposes only and is NOT NECESSARY to use! You can come up with it yourself by following our instructions. Just don't forget your password! To prevent this from happening, write down a set of symbols in your diary or in some notebook and hide it away from human eyes. There is no need to write it down in your phone - someone can see it there, and if the phone is also stolen, then...

By the way, there are special programs for automatic generation and storing passwords on the computer, but I don’t recommend using them - despite the fact that the data is securely hidden in the program, something can happen to the computer and then you can say “Goodbye” to your data... Be careful!