What Were the Weakest Passwords Hacked from LinkedIn?
Last week, more than six million LinkedIn passwords were stolen and published on a message board frequented by Russian hackers. Now computer security firm Rapid7 has combed through them to show just how weak many of those passwords actually were.
The most popular passwords were a word — like the user’s first name — followed by a string of sequential numbers like “1234.” Security experts say that’s a bad idea because cracking the first part is easy, which means all that’s left are a few characters at the end.
Swear words are also popular, especially on an employment-related website like LinkedIn, but beware — they’re some of the first words hackers check.
Experts recommend using four unrelated words to create a pass phrase. And don’t start it with “ilove” followed by a name — hackers know that’s something people tend to use because it’s easy to remember.
Here are the top 10 LinkedIn password-starters and password-enders the hackers cracked, along with how many times they appeared on the list:
1. link (941)
2. 1234 (435)
3. work (294)
4. god (214)
5. job (205)
6. 12345 (179)
7. angel (176)
8. the (143)
9. ilove (133)
10. sex (119)