How secure are your passwords?

Cybersecurity and online safety are issues that have become increasingly important as modern-day life continues to shift towards a reliance on technology and the internet for mundane, day-to-day tasks. These days, activities such as work meetings, the weekly shop, and checking your bank balance can be carried out in only a few clicks. But as more information is gathered and stored, everyone becomes more aware of how vulnerable their (personal) data may be. 

But when it comes to taking steps to protect yourself and your data, how much effort to people actually put in? In honour of National Change your Password Day on November 24, IT company Competa IT has compiled a list of the most popular passwords in the Netherlands from 2020. 

Millions of people still use weak passwords

Using data gathered by Scattered Secrets - a company that allows you to find out if your passwords have been hacked and your accounts have been breached - Competa IT revealed that there were currently around 8,8 million cracked passwords belonging to Dutch email addresses ending in .nl. That is an increase of about 7 percent compared to 2019. However, this doesn’t include Gmail or Hotmail accounts, as these addresses always end in .com, and so the true number of people in the Netherlands who have fallen victim to a security breach is likely even higher.

As for the cracked passwords that belong to these .nl accounts? The top 10 most commonly used ones are pretty weak - the most common, not only in the Netherlands but also around the world, is “123456,” which can be cracked by hackers fairly quickly. Other options that prove popular in the Netherlands are “password” (8th place), “amsterdam” (13th place) and “computer” (18th place). Take a look at the top 50 below:

Source: Scattered Secrets and Competa IT.

Staying safe and secure online

According to online passwords manager Nordpass - who publishes a similar international list annually - passwords such as “qwertyuiop” and “asdfghjkl” can be cracked within only one second, and the password “123456” has been cracked over 23 million times. 

Luckily, the two founders of Scattered Secrets, Ricky Gervers and Jeroen van Beek, have issued some advice for ensuring your accounts stay secure: use unique, long, and unpredictable passwords. “The bulk of data we receive contains a lot of moderate (weak) passwords,” they say, “Unique means never use the same password twice, long means 10 characters or more, and unpredictable means don’t use a system that a hacker can guess.”