In its third annual list of the Worst Password Offenders, Dashlane ranked Kanye West, the Pentagon and cryptocurrency owners as the top three users who demonstrated significantly poor password habits in 2018. Also included in this year's top 10 were Google, the United Nations and Nutella.
“Passwords are the first line of defense against cyberattacks,” said Emmanuel Schalit, CEO of Dashlane, in a press release. “Weak passwords, reused passwords, and poor organizational password management can easily put sensitive information as risk.”
According to the study, an average internet user has more than 200 password-protected accounts, which Dashlane says will double over the next five years. “The sheer number of accounts requiring passwords means everyone is prone to make the same mistakes as the Password Offenders,” said Schalit. “We hope our list serves as a wake-up call to everyone to follow the best password security practices.”
After it was publicly revealed during a White House meeting that Kanye’s iPhone passcode was 000000, it’s no surprise that he claimed the top spot for weakest password. But the Pentagon taking second place is a bit alarming, particularly since the agency was ranked fourth on the 2017 list.
“A devastating audit by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found numerous cybersecurity vulnerabilities in several of the Pentagon’s systems. Among the disturbing issues was that a GAO audit team was able to guess admin passwords in just nine seconds, as well as the discovery that software for multiple weapons systems was protected by default passwords that any member of the public could have found through a basic Google search,” the press release said.
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