Do You Use One Of The 200 Most Common Passwords In Canada?

Cybersecurity company NordPass, which sells password management services, has published a list of the 200 most common passwords in Canada. It claims that too many Canadians use passwords that can be easily guessed.

Password preferences among Canadians

This year’s list of passwords is topped by the usual suspects, such as “password”, “qwerty”, “abc123” and different variations of “123456”. These same passwords have the distinction of not only being the most used passwords by Canadians, but around the world.

NordPass has revealed that Canadians had “perhaps the highest number of country-related passwords”. “canada” was the 15th most common password in this country. Other common country-related passwords on the list include “toronto”, “montreal” and “canada1”.

Not only did they find passwords related to the name and regions of the country, but “hockey” is a relevant password, among other sports such as “football”, “baseball” and “basketball”.

Another interesting aspect was the password preference between men and women. While men were more likely to use the password “hockey”, women were more likely to choose passwords such as “iloveyou”, “princess” and “sunshine”.

The researchers also found that many Canadians used their own names as passwords. Among them, “tiffany” was the eighth most common password in Canada. Names such as “maggie”, “matthew”, “bailey”, “michelle” and “andrew” were also in the top 50.

Human error found

The cybersecurity firm claims that 144 of the 200 most common passwords in Canada can be cracked in less than a second. Of the 50 countries analysed, Canada ranks as the 8th country with the highest number of leaked passwords per capita.

“Unfortunately, passwords are getting weaker and weaker and people are still failing to maintain proper password hygiene”, says Jonas Karklys of NordPass in a press release. “It is important to understand that passwords are the gateway to our digital lives, and with the fact that we are spending more and more time online, it is becoming hugely important to take care of our cybersecurity”.

There is no doubt that the biggest cybersecurity mistake in the country is not digital, but human. NordPass recommends using a unique password for each account. A good password should be at least 12 characters long with a combination of numbers, letters and symbols.

Since the average user has more than 100 different accounts, storing them in a password manager can make it easier to keep track of them, Nordpass says. Using multi-factor authentication, such as a text message code or an authentication app, can also add an extra layer of protection.

The TOP 20 most common passwords in Canada

1. 123456
2. password
3. 123456789
4. 12345
5. 12345678
6. qwerty
7. abc123
8. tiffany
9. password1
10. testing
11. hockey
12. 1234567
13. iloveyou
14. 1234
15. canada
16. 1234567890
17. 111111
18. sunshine
19. 123123
20. dragon
    
    Source: CTV News.