What you need to know
- A recent study by Nordpass reveals one of the most commonly used passwords in 2021 was Samsung.
- "Samsung" as a password is a simple seven-digit passcode that can take hackers less than a second to figure out.
- Nordpass suggests that longer passwords that play with uppercase and lowercase letters while also using numbers can help secure your accounts.
A recent study gives us some insight into passwords users should never use and those that could give them some padded online security.
According to SamMobile, a recently conducted study by password management solution Nordpass sheds some light on the most commonly used passwords. The study gathered password data from nearly 30 countries and found that many people used "Samsung" as their password... even using a lowercase "s."
Samsung is a seven-digit password which, as Nordpass explains, isn't recommended as these types of passwords can be decrypted in less than a second due to their simplicity.
While using "Samsung" as your password may seem odd, some of the other most common passwords are your typical "123456" and, you guessed it, "password." Nordpass informs through its report that while these are short, they are all numbers or letters, making them so easy to decipher. Additionally, they lack uppercase characters or any other modifiers.
You could mix up your password to make things harder for the ill-intent folk by tossing in uppercase, lowercase, and numbers to make things a little more challenging. But the amount of difficulty isn't exactly a science as a seven-digit password that's done all that could still face a seven-second issue. On the other hand, Nordpass has found that an eight-digit password would cause an infiltrator to take seven minutes to decrypt.
Nordpass' research found that using a brand name as an account's password has increased in the past few years. With Samsung being one of them, the brand name went from being ranked 198th in 2019 to breaking the top one hundred passwords used in 2021, coming in at 78th.
Strong passwords can get a little hard to remember, especially if you're using uppercase, lowercase, and number combinations — not to mention adding in punctuation. Even so, we always suggest using any of the best password manager apps, which can help generate and save complex passwords for you.
