Final stretch before the start of the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games. As France prepares to live to the rhythm of this global event, the fear of cyberattacks exists. The government, via the site Cybermalveillance.gouv.frrecently took stock and confirms that a resurgence of cybercriminal activities for financial purposes is foreseeable. Attacks may take the form of ransomware, hacking of social network accounts, defacing of websites, or even destructive viruses. The alert is aimed at small and medium-sized businesses, associations and communities, but individuals should also be careful.
In their new study, the research team of Specops is looking at users who choose their sports hobbies as passwords. The specialist in password management and authentication solutions detected 157,048 passwords – relating to the 32 sports played at this summer’s Olympic Games – that were stolen by malware over the last 12 months. As a reminder, Specops is based on a database of more than 4 billion passwords. The firm adds that the passwords discovered in its study were all “actually chosen by end users within existing organizations.”
Golf and football come out on top by a wide margin
The words “golf” and “football” are among the most compromised sports passwords, with the ball clearly ahead. In fact, the word “golf” tops the list of most compromised passwords with a total of 40,294 occurrences. This is almost twice as high as the ubiquitous “football” (20,550 compromised passwords). As Specops explains, it is common for Internet users to reuse their passwords. There is therefore a “high chance” that they will be used in multiple applications, increasing the risk for users.
Compromised passwords include the word “golf” combined with numbers or capital letters to meet the minimum requirements of sites and services. As is often the case, hacked passwords use a single capital letter, a fairly common word (golf, football) and a number or special character. “These passwords are very easy to crack,” says the research team behind the study. Some examples of compromised passwords related to “golf”:
- golf1332
- golfer559
- 1Amgolfer
- golfonline99
- Ilovegolf4
- Golfer1234
- Golf123
- Golferboy1
- Ggolfing55
- golflove1
- golfinho1!
- Golf pro1
- golf3434
- 123golfgolf
Also read: Max, Canal+, France TV… how to watch the 2024 Olympics live (and for free) this summer?
A password that is too familiar carries risks
“You might think that few people would use their favorite sport as a password, but this data shows otherwise. Most end users know not to use their birthday, their children’s names, or even their pet’s name as a password, because it’s easy for hackers to learn this information. However, they will often turn to something familiar and easy to remember. Using a hobby, a movie title, or the name of your favorite musician as a password also carries risks.”says Darren James, Senior Product Manager at Specops Software, of the results.
While waiting for the disappearance of passwords (promised for years), the best thing to do is to use a strong and random password generator, a password manager or even follow the advice of the CNIL. As soon as possible, you should enable two-factor authentication.
Source: www.journaldugeek.com
