World Password Day, the most used in Italy and how to choose a secure one

Today, May 2, is World Password Day. Established in 2013 by Intel Security, International Password Day is celebrated every year on the first Thursday of May and is an opportunity to reinforce the culture of online security.
Punctually, every year, the ranking of the most popular passwords is presented again and, even on this occasion, there are no exceptions: worldwide the most used is still “123457”, followed by “admin” and “12345678”. All passwords that as reported by the technology company NordPass, author of the annual analysis, referring to 2023, they can be deciphered in less than a second.

The most used passwords in Italy

In the Italian ranking of the passwords most used by users, “admin” has overtaken the string “123456”, slipping into second position. In third place at a national level, however, is the word “password”, followed by the same string with a capital “P” and the sequence of numbers “12345678”. In the top ten, we also find the timeless “qwerty” (in eighth position), which are the first letters on the keyboard at the top left, following the strings “123456789” and “password99”. In ninth place, there is the password “UNKNOWN”, followed by the numeric string “12345”. Almost all passwords can be deciphered in less than a second, which Italians have been fond of for a long time now.
In recent years, in fact, despite some small changes, the most common passwords have remained substantially the same and are primarily due to the laziness of trying to create a sequence of uppercase or lowercase letters, numbers and complex symbols that cannot be traced back to personal information. .

How to choose a secure password

World Password Day is a useful event to remember to update your passwords. There are various aspects to consider in order not to compromise your IT security, starting with a password that is as secure as possible. Here are some useful tips to avoid unpleasant consequences. First of all, it is important to avoid creating simple passwords, which can be easily obtained through personal information that can be consulted on your social accounts, such as the name of your pet, or your date of birth. It is also strongly recommended not to reuse the same password for different services, as it would compromise security and privacy, as well as using complex passwords that include uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers and symbols to make them more secure. In this, the most common browsers such as Chrome or Safari come to the rescue, which can suggest complex passwords and automatically store them on devices for greater convenience.

Other tips

Another useful tool for protecting your passwords is two-factor authentication, which requires an additional code in addition to your password to access your accounts. This code can be taken from an app, such as Authenticator, or can be obtained via SMS. You can also use password managers, which are software specially developed by IT security agencies to securely store passwords and auto-populate them when necessary.

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