Cryptocurrency investors sit at number three on annual “Worst Password Offenders” list, issued by password management and crypto custody company Dashlane.
Driven by a record breaking bull run that saw bitcoin achieve an all time high valuation on the cusp of $20,000, several casual investors with holdings potentially worth millions tried desperately to remember their long-forgotten bitcoin wallet passwords, even going as far as hiring hypnotists to extract the valuable information from their subconscious.
The tongue-in-cheek ranking aims to highlight password-related mistakes to call public attention to best practices for creating and managing passwords.
“Passwords are the first line of defense against cyber attacks. Weak passwords, reused passwords, and poor organizational password management can easily put sensitive information as risk. The sheer number of accounts requiring passwords means everyone is prone to make the same mistakes as the Password Offenders. We hope our list serves as a wake-up call to everyone to follow the best password security practices,” Emmanuel Schalit, Dashlane CEO said.
Dashlane recommends the following precautions for password users.
- Ensure that all accounts are password protected, including email accounts, servers, apps or anything that may contain sensitive personal data. The presence of a strong password is often the only line of defense between user data and hackers.
- Use strong passwords that avoid the risk of being guessed after a rudimentary amount of research into the user. Passwords should not contain names or proper nouns that can easily be associated with the user, or weak number sequences like the user’s date of birth. It is recommended that all passwords exceed eight characters and include a mix of letters, number and symbols.
- Do not reuse passwords: each account should be protected with a unique password. This reduces the risk of hackers gaining access to a user’s sensitive data by compromising other accounts using the same password.
