Hackers are cracking more than 921 passwords every second and Australians are leaving themselves vulnerable by using terms like "password" or "123456" to secure their accounts.
A review of almost 15 billion passwords leaked by hackers found those which were most likely to be guessed by cybercriminals, who could then go on to damage your finances, reputation and online identity.
Easy-to-remember terms like "123456789" and "qwerty" were also easy to pick, with just over 13 per cent of leaked passwords being unique, according to an analysis of leaked accounts by CyberNews.
Eva and Alex were the most popular names to use in passwords, with people using both names more than seven million times respectively.
Foods like pie and fish also rated highly as passwords, while the top season to use as a password was summer.
While they were popular choices, these easy passwords could cost you.
Australians lost $3.1 billion to scams in 2022, which was an 80 per cent increase on total losses recorded in 2021.
Internet users are becoming increasingly vulnerable to cyber attacks, with hackers making 74 per cent more password attempts than two years ago.
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Having the same password across personal and work accounts increases the chance of being hacked.
It also puts you at risk of losing multiple accounts at the same time.
"If it's easy for you to remember, chances are it's also easy for cybercriminals to guess," My Business general manager Phil Parisis said.
"That's not only putting you at risk but also exposing the businesses and corporations that you work for.
"Another common inclusion is a year - often their birth year or another significant year in their life."
Top 10 passwords of hacked accounts
- 123456
- 123456789
- qwerty
- password
- 12345
- qwerty123
- 1q2w3e
- 12345678
- 111111
- 1234567890
How to create a safe and secure password
One of the best ways to ensure no one can guess your password is to make sure you include a mix of capital and lowercase letters, a symbol or two and use numbers.
Example of a stronger password:
MySecurePa$$word785!
Example of a weaker password:
password123
Make sure when creating a password that it's memorable to you, but doesn't include any obvious or guessable words, like children or pet names.
One way you can make a strong but memorable password is by creating a "passphrase" – a string of three or four (or more) random words combined together.
According to the Australian Cyber Security Centre, they are "harder to guess but easy to remember" than passwords.
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