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The link posted on the article merits a submission by itself: "The science of password selection" (a breakdown of common passwords by selection practices, as t
by GFischer 15y ago
The link posted on the article merits a submission by itself:
"The science of password selection" (a breakdown of common passwords by selection practices, as taken from public leaks)
http://www.troyhunt.com/2011/07/science-of-password-selection.html http://www.troyhunt.com/2011/07/science-of-password-selectio...
In short, passwords are chosen from:
People names: this includes a list of about 26,000 common first and last names.
Place names: this is everything from towns to states to countries and includes about 32,000 entries.
English dictionary
The most common passwords by group:
Name:
1. maggie
2. michael
3. jennifer
Place:
1. dallas
2. canada
3. boston
Dictionary Words:
1. password (oh dear)
2. monkey
3. dragon
Numbers:
1. 123456
2. 12345678
3. 123456789
- kragen 15y agoIs it possible that the breached Sony passwords he was analyzing may have been cracked with dictionary attacks? Maybe the reason only 1% of the passwords had a non-alphanumeric character was that the crackers mostly didn't crack the passwords that had any non-alphanumeric characters.