Hacking made easy

INTERNET: It’s not as if we haven’t been warned. Since the early 1990s, computer experts have cautioned against using passwords that are easy for hackers to crack. Yet according to a new study, the most popular account password today is “123456”. Ten years ago it was “12345”.

The study was conducted by Imperva, a US firm that makes software designed to stop hackers. Imperva found that other popular passwords include “abc123”, “iloveyou” and “password”.

“I guess it’s just a genetic flaw in humans,” comments Amichai Shulman, Imperva’s chief technology officer. “We’ve been following the same patterns since the 1990s,” Shulman told The New York Times.

Amachai Shulman "We've been following the same patterns since the 1990s"        

Shulman said that, because so many people use the same, simple passwords, hackers can break into countless computers at the same time. “We tend to think of password guessing as a very time-consuming attack in which I take each account and try a large number of name-and-password combinations,” Shulman says. “The reality is that you can be very effective by choosing a small number of common passwords.”

Will computer users heed the warnings? Probably not, says Jeff Moss, a hacking expert who now belongs to the Homeland Security Advisory Council.  “Nowadays, we have to keep probably ten times as many passwords in our head as we did ten years ago. Voicemail passwords, ATM PINS and internet passwords — it’s so hard to keep track of [them all].”

Since most of us won’t be able to remember a different password for every use, Moss suggests having at least two, a simple one for social networking and entertainment sites, and a more complex one for online banking or e-mail. Moss himself uses passwords with at least 12 characters, because he feels this will make it more difficult for hackers to break into his account than into the account of someone with a six-character password.

“It’s like the joke where the hikers run into a bear in the forest, and the hiker that survives is the one who outruns his buddy,” Moss says. “You just want to run that bit faster.”