• NordPass has revealed the 20 most common passwords used by South Africans and they are all junk.
• While some may get creative, adding “123” to “qwerty” is not exactly going to set the cybersecurity world alight with murmurs.
• It’s highly recommend that you review your passwords and make them more complex and harder to guess.

People, do we really need to have this conversation every year? Seemingly so and because we’re sick of being nice about it, this year we’re taking a different approach.

Your password sucks.

We know this because NordPass has sent us a report on just how basic the passwords being used by locals are. The password management application has shared the top 20 most common passwords in South Africa and if yours is on here, shame on you.

1. 123456
2. password
3. qwerty123
4. Abcd1234
5. 123456789
6. qwerty1
7. 12345
8. 12345678
9. Aa123456
10. qwerty
11. Password
12. Password1
13. 1234
14. 1234567
15. 1234567890
16. P@ssw0rd
17. 123abc
18. password1
19. 123love
20. admin

“South African password choices reveal a mix of simple patterns and an attempt at creativity with options like ‘Abcd1234’ and ‘P@ssw0rd,’ hinting at a growing awareness of password strength. The inclusion of ‘123love’ adds a personal, sentimental touch to the list, suggesting that memorable phrases still appeal to users. Despite these variations, common words and straightforward substitutions remain popular, showing that many users prioritize familiarity and ease of recall in their passwords,” NordPass told us.

Are you not embarrassed by how you are making us look to the world? The Springboks are out here showcasing how smart we can be and you choose to secure your Facebook account with a password you can type with one hand. If you are one of the rare types to use a complex password, good on you but the rest of you ought to be ashamed of yourselves.

While we appreciate that some locals are trying to be creative, reverting back to simplistic passwords with what one may think is a unique twist, is insufficient. For instance, we’re sure the folks adding 123 to qwerty feel rather chuffed with themselves, until they learned it’s the third most popular password.

While our disappointment is immeasurable, this data should concern business owners, especially SMEs.

NordPass reports that 40 percent of the most common passwords used are in both a personal and professional setting. This, the company says, highlights how businesses think that employees will show how to become cybersecurity experts when they enter the building.

“No matter if I wear a suit and tie at work or I’m scrolling through social media in my pyjamas, I am still the same person. This means that regardless of the setting I am in, my password choices are influenced by the same criteria — usually convenience, personal experiences, or cultural surroundings. Businesses ignoring these considerations and leaving password management in their employees’ hands risk both their company’s and clients’ security online,” says Karolis Arbaciauskas, head of business product at NordPass.

This behaviour then gets reinforced because employees may think that if a password is good enough for the office, it should be good enough for everywhere else.

There is a valid reason for your bad password though

On average a person has around 200 accounts online. That sounds like a lot but consider the apps that you used once that required a sign-up, events you’ve attended or any ecommerce store you made a purchase from and you’ll see that number is rather accurate.

It’s because of this vast array of accounts that people tend to recycle passwords and worse still, recycle simple passwords.

Cybercriminals love sharing data between themselves and if your account on Club Penguin uses the same password as your work email, well then you’ve just rolled out the red carpet for attacks.

NordPass advises using strong passwords at least 20 characters long. This should include numbers, special characters, letters, you can even throw in a space in some instances. If that sounds complicated, that’s because it should be. Try using a phrase that only you know and that you can commit to memory.

Here we recommend using a password manager. This allows you to generate many complex passwords guarded by one master password. This means only having to remember one password rather than 200 unique passphrases.

You should also enable multi-factor authentication wherever possible. This acts as a preventative measure should your password be compromised giving you time to wrest back control of your account and change the password.

Passkeys are also worth exploring. Google, Microsoft and Apple all offer passkey support and we highly recommend you make use of it. It’s really an evolution of passwords and multi-factor authentication and it’s gaining popularity among users.

As for business, a password policy should be a core part of your security policy. It’s not enough to trust employees to create their own password, guidance must be provided to ensure the company’s walls hold strong.

We’re begging you, choose a stronger password so that NordPass stops showcasing just how poor our decisions are.

[Image – PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay]