Winners and Losers in Password 'Bracketology'

A recent study shows that there's a clear winner in the 'most used sports mascot' password competition.

Dark Reading Staff, Dark Reading

March 23, 2018

1 Min Read
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Everyone knows you shouldn't use words like "password" as part of your secure password, but what about other words? What about sports team mascots? Keeper Security ran an analysis they've called "Password Madness" to check on which mascots win the most-used prize and the brackets have been filled.

Keeper Security ran their analysis on the massive database of 1.4 billion clear-text credentials 4iQ found on the dark web. What they found was a clear winner and loser.

According to a statement from Keeper Security, of all the passwords looked at, those containing "Tiger" and its variations (such as "T1ger", "T1g3r", etc.) appeared 187 percent more often than passwords containing variations of "Eagle," the second-most common password set found, and nearly 850 percent more than the least common password, which was "Bluejay" and its variations.

Since many people re-use the same password on nearly every online account, patterns such as this open up hundreds of thousands of credentials to speedy hacking. Keeper Security recommends that users find other, less risky, ways of honoring their favorite sports teams.

For more, read here.

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Dark Reading Staff

Dark Reading

Dark Reading is a leading cybersecurity media site.

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