According to new research from password manager NordPass, several high-level executives and CEOs are found to be using shockingly terrible passwords, including “123456” and “password.”
This type of behavior can easily lead to major data breaches.
It’s an appallingly widespread issue. In a 2021 report, US telecom company Verizon found that 80 percent of data breaches were made due to weak passwords.
NordPass states some of the most commonly used passwords by CEOs on its website, which it “compiled in partnership with independent researchers specializing in research of cybersecurity incidents.”
Other hilarious entries in the list of CEO passwords include “welcome,” “000000,” “test,” and “qwerty.”
The industries where these passwords are seen the most include the technology and even the finance sector.
CEOs also commonly use popular names for their passwords, many of them presumably reference to partners or loved ones, with the name “Tiffany” showing up in over 100,000 data breaches out of the sample of 290 million breaches NordPass analyzed for its research.
It is suggested for the CEOs to use a password manager and turn on two-factor authentication to avoid data breaches.