Problems with passwords appear regularly in the news, primarily when huge companies with large numbers of customers get hacked. In the 21st Century, the 10 largest data breaches hit a total of over five billion accounts.

Companies that do business online try to help keep client data confidential. One means to do so is to force customers to use complex passwords. Most banks, for example, require over 10 characters in a password. One of these must be upper case. One must be a number. One must be a symbol. And, for additional security, the password cannot be one the client used in the previous three years.

This has not kept people from rash stupidity. The most common password used for security is the word “password”. (And that’s not the only foolish choice people make. These are the worst most common passwords in America.)

The news about the use of “password” shows what idiots people can be. Think about what people protect with passwords. Certainly transactions that involve money. This includes banks, car loans, and personal checking and saving accounts. Taken together, these can amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars for a middle class American.

Add to the list of things that are password protected e-commerce transactions which can easily involve hundreds of dollars. Hackers can get access to accounts from places from Amazon, or Walmart

One thing that even security software people admit is that some portion of hackers are ingenious. They can stay ahead of the protection provided both at a personal and enterprise level. Even large companies and governments get hacked. Several governments and hospitals in small cities have been held for ransom by hackers.

But people get hacked more easily if they use “password” as their password. A good hacker can hack an account with “password” as its password in about one second.

See the most common passwords in the world and how long they take to crack.

Thank you for reading! Have some feedback for us?
Contact the 24/7 Wall St. editorial team.