Is your password vulnerable to hacking? 90% are

New research by global consultancy firm Deloittes has found that over 90% of online passwords, even those that are deemed as strong choices, will be vulnerable to hacking in 2013.

Global lead for Deloitte’s technology, media and telecommunications industry Jolyon Barker, said “Whilst moving to stronger, longer passwords means greater levels of security, people understandably find these harder to remember.”

I must admit that I find it hard to remember my passwords; with all of the minimum character rules and having to have both numbers and letters for a lot of passwords these days it’s difficult to keep track of which password I have for each account. It’s easy to think that ‘password1234’ is easy to remember and therefore a brilliant choice, but realistically a lot of other people will have thought of that password too.

In June 2012, a survey found that some of the most common passwords were ‘123456’, ‘abc123’, ‘iloveyou’ and ‘monkey’. If you see your password amongst these examples change it now!

Facebook have admitted that hackers are managing to break into hundreds of thousands of accounts every day so the more obscure the password, the more secure your personal information will be.

It is predicted that other forms of authentication will be used in the future to protect high value information as password hacking could lead to the loss of billions of dollars in revenue and perhaps irreparable damage to companies’ reputations.

Make sure that you protect your information by finding a password that is unique and sticking to it… and don’t write it down… and don’t tell anyone!