When you consider the way these passwords are
usually stored (sometimes on simple MSAcces databases or other databases without
encrypting the password field) by the website designers on some of these
websites. I agree it is very wise not to put serious passwords on such websites
as they do not serve their purpose anyway.
I personally use very weak passwords on
such websites too. Let them hack an e-banking website then rewrite the story. The
statistics will make more sense then.
From:
kictanet-bounces+jkagwe=kippra.or.ke@lists.kictanet.or.ke
[mailto:kictanet-bounces+jkagwe=kippra.or.ke@lists.kictanet.or.ke] On Behalf Of Odhiambo
Sent: Tuesday, February 10, 2009
8:19 AM
To: James Kagwe
Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy
Discussions
Subject: Re: [kictanet] Hacked
password list offers security insights
On Tue, Feb 10, 2009 at 1:27 AM, Evans Kahuthu <ekahuthu@comtechltd.co.ke>
wrote:
Recently a niche programming-oriented website called phpbb.com had its user database
hacked into and the passwords for 20,000 members stolen. The hacker who broke
in then posted the account info and passwords online for the world to see. And
while this is really bad news for those 20,000 unlucky souls, it offers an instructive
lesson on password security for the rest of us.
InformationWeek
analyzed the hacked password list and found a number of interesting trends in
the data, primarily revolving around the fact that most people do exactly what
they've been told not to do since
passwords were first invented.
Author/analyst
Robert Graham has tons of analysis on offer. I'm ordering my favorite/most
enlightening data points from the piece here, starting with the most
interesting. On thing to remember: These passwords are from a group of people
interested in computer programming, so if anyone should know better, it's these
guys.
> The
most popular password (3.03% of the 20,000) was "123456." It's also
generally considered the most common password used today.
> 4
percent used some variant of the word "password." Seriously, people,
there's no excuse for this one. "password" was the 2nd most popular
password used, also in keeping with historical trends.
> 16
percent of passwords were a person's first name. No word on if it was their first name, but someone's. Joshua is
the most commonly used first-name password, a likely reference to the movie WarGames.
>
Patterns abound. In addition to "123456," other pattens like
"12345, "qwerty," and "abc123" were common, comprising
14 percent of the passwords used.
> 35
percent of passwords were six characters long. 0.34 percent were only one
character long.
> For
reasons no one can explain, "dragon," "master," and
"killer" all crack the top 20 passwords. (On the top 500 password
list linked above, "dragon" is #7.)
> One
thing Graham doesn't discuss is that phpbb.com
is really just a message board, and many users may simply have not cared about
the security of their passwords here (unlike, say, with a bank account). In
other words, they may very well have intentionally chosen something simplistic
here to avoid re-using a password they save for an important login, just in
case this site got hacked. Which, it turns out, it did.
I could
go on, but Graham's post has way more detail than I can digest here and it's
easy-reading too. Worth a close look for any citizen of the web.
Personally, I believe noone really cares about the strength (or lack of) the
passwords they use on community sites. To start with, there is a stage in the
registration process into such sites (or Bulletin Boards if you may call them)
which warns you NOT TO USE any of your sensitive passwords that you use
elsewhere. Given that noone really stores any sensitive material on such sites
it's not uncommon to simply use 123456 (because the registration system insists
on your password having at least six characters) or something like
"letmein".
I don't believe it was "really bad news for the 20,000 unlucky souls"
at all. Rather, the lesson to be learn here, IMHO, is by those souls deploying
systems that are accessible to the hostile Internet to take seriously security
considerations for those systems.
--
Best regards,
Odhiambo WASHINGTON,
+254733744121/+254722743223
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"The only time a woman really succeeds in changing a man is when he is a
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