Choose the right answer Title: The web's worst passwords – are you forever changing yours? (The Guardian, 18/11/2011) Created by Dariia Dziuba
Choose the right answer
We have all been there – you want to buy something from an online retailer, it's in the basket and you're about to checkout when suddenly you have to come up with a new password before you can go any further. After casting round for inspiration, you finally come up with one: "password". (Paragraph 1)
Well, probably not – going for something that obvious does seem rash. But apparently many people do it. It tops a list of the 25 worst passwords, put together by a US firm SplashGuide from the details of millions of stolen passwords posted online by hackers. Second on the list is almost as uninspired: "123456".(Paragraph 2)
These are the top 10: 1. password 2. 123456 3. 12345678 4. qwerty 5. abc123 6. monkey 7. 1234567 8. letmein 9. trustno1 10. dragon (Paragraph 3)
These are common passwords, and likely to be among those fraudsters might try if they want to break into your accounts. Splashdata says we must make our passwords stronger, by varying the types of characters we use, including numbers as well as letters, choosing passwords of eight characters or more and using different passwords for different sites. (Paragraph 4)
But it's not always that simple, is it? As well as having to adhere to the requirements of different sites – some of which ask for a mixture of letters and numbers, some of which say letters only – you do also need to think of something you can remember the next time round. I must have changed my Verified by Visa password about 15 times this year because each time I can't remember what I've reset it to. (Paragraph 5)
I've never considered making any of my passwords "password" but I did nearly use another on the list – fortunately the website I was trying to sign up told me it was considered "weak". Not every site does that though, so I'm lucky I didn't use it elsewhere – it could have left me very hackable. It's worth checking the list, just in case one of yours is less secure than you'd hoped. (Paragraph 6)
1. The expression “cast round” in Paragraph 1 means:
read
find
look for
write
The following can be inferred from the text:
people tend to choose very “strong” passwords
users tend to create unprotected passwords
the Internet users usually make unhackable passwords
people come up with complicated passwords
To create a strong password you should do the following EXCEPT:
include numbers and letters
make your password 8 or more numbers long
use different passwords for different sites
change your password every month
Which of the following can be inferred from the text EXCEPT:
some websites can tell you that you password is weak
you may use only numbers creating your password at some websites
a certain amount of sites asks you to make your password consisting of letters only
different websites demand you to use a mixture of letters and numbers in your password
Hackers steal passwords because:
they want to get access to your email account
they are very simple and include a short number of characters