In 2023, “admin” was the most common password among South Africans.
This is according to the fifth annual NordPass study, which uncovered the 200 most common passwords worldwide and compared among 35 countries. It also explored what passwords people use for different services, and whether they vary or not.
Among the 20 most common passwords in South Africa are the same-old worst offenders and some newcomers:
* admin
* 123456
* 336699
* password
* weiter
* 336699Aa
* October@24
* 12345
* Password1
* submit321
* 12345678
* awesome
* Password
* P@ssw0rd
* Passw0rd1
* P@55w0rd
* Mandela1964
* 12345678901
* 123456789
* Sexy1234
While passwords in every country, including South Africa, vary greatly, there are some clear global trends:
* The study concludes that people use the weakest passwords for their streaming accounts. In contrast, the strongest passwords are used for financial accounts.
* Instead of improving password creation habits, Internet users have gone in another direction by sticking to already pre-configured passwords. For example, the most popular password in South Africa – “admin” – is most likely the standard, pre-configured password that people do not bother changing.
* People often go for passwords that reveal an emotion. While “awesome” is trending in South Africa, “super123” ranks among the most common in China.
* Public events or national holidays apparently also serve as an inspiration for people’s passwords. For example, South Africans loved “October@24” for their passwords, which most likely refers to South Africa’s Heritage Day, celebrated on October 24. In the United Arab Emirates, an event called Expo 2020 Dubai also left a lasting impression, with “Dubai@2020” being ranked among the country’s most common passwords.
* Internet users often use numbers in their passwords. This year, the world’s most common password “123456” is ranked second in South Africa. In fact, almost a third (31%) of the world’s most beloved passwords this year consist of similar numerical sequences, such as “123456789,” “123321,” and “000000.”.
* As many as 70% of the passwords in this year’s global list can be cracked in less than a second.
The study also revealed what kind of passwords people use for different platforms and whether they vary in strength.
The weakest passwords are used to secure streaming accounts. According to Tomas Smalakys, chief technology officer at NordPass, this could be associated with people jointly managing shared accounts and using easy-to-remember passwords for convenience. Unsurprisingly, people pay more attention to accounts they associate directly with money. Therefore, they use the strongest passwords for their financial services.
To find out about passwords internet users employ for different platforms, researchers analysed a 6,6Tb database of passwords, exposed by various stealer malware, which experts consider a huge threat to people’s cybersecurity.
Malware attacks are particularly dangerous because malware logs contain a vast amount of information about the victim. For example, malware can steal information saved in your browsers, such as passwords and other credentials, source website cookies, autofill data. In addition to that, it can also steal files from its victim’s computer, as well as system details such as OS version or IP address.
“The scariest part is that victims might not even realize that their computer is infected. Bad actors tend to hide malware in well-crafted phishing emails, imitating a legitimate organization, such as your bank or your company,” says Smalakys.
Throughout the five years that NordPass has conducted this research, “123456” was the top password four times. According to Smalakys, this is a clear sign that change in authentication is essential.
Passkeys are a new form of authentication. The essence of this technology is that the user doesn’t need to come up with a password – everything is done automatically. When joining a website that supports passkeys, the user’s device generates a pair of related keys – public and private. The private key is saved on the device itself and the public key is stored on the website’s server. Without each other, they are useless. If the user is successfully identified by their biometrics, the passkeys are matched and the user successfully signs in.
“This technology will help eliminate lousy passwords, thus making users more secure. However, as with every innovation, passwordless authentication will not be adopted overnight. Being amongst the first password managers to offer this technology, we can see that users are more and more curious to test it out. However, there’s still a lot of work to be done and password security still remains a matter of today,” says Smalakys.
While passkeys are still making their way to the mainstream, password and cybersecurity hygiene remains of utmost importance.
* Create long and complex passwords. “123456 just doesn’t cut it anymore,” says Smalakys. Easy-to-guess passwords essentially equal unlocked house doors, which is why he advises using 20 character-long random passwords containing uppercase and lowercase letters, symbols, and numbers.
* Avoid storing your secrets on your browser and adopt a password manager. With stealer malware attacks targeting credentials on browsers, third-party password management software are considered a more secure choice for credential storage.
* Start adopting passkeys. An increasing number of websites are now offering the option to access accounts with passkeys instead of passwords. While passkeys won’t completely replace passwords just yet, they are definitely the future of authentication.
* Stay vigilant. In order to protect yourself from stealer malware, pay close attention to anything that you download onto your computer. Malware is often distributed via phishing emails — so learn how to recognise them.