Popular passwords: Simple series of numbers and "hello" in first place
The increasing number of online services leads many users to choose simple passwords that are always the same, explained the HPI. This makes it easy for cyber criminals to gain access to important personal information. The institute's analysis shows that internet users have not become any more creative when choosing their passwords in recent years.
In sixth to tenth place in the ranking are "password", "password1" and "iloveyou". The results also indicate that cyber criminals use even the simplest passwords for bot farms or disinformation campaigns. According to HPI, this explains why passwords such as "target123" and "gwerty123" were used conspicuously often (eighth and tenth place).
Every year, the Hasso Plattner Institute publishes the most frequently used passwords in Germany - the data is based on millions of access data from the HPI Identity Leak Checker database, which are registered to email addresses with a .de domain and were leaked in 2023.
The HPI advises using long passwords with more than 15 characters and using different passwords for different services. The use of password managers can also increase security.
According to a survey conducted by the digital association Bitkom last week, people in Germany were less careful when choosing passwords last year than in the previous year. According to Bitkom, 74% of users used complex passwords with a mix of letters, numbers and special characters. A year ago, the figure was 83%.
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Source: www.stern.de
