The festive season brings a surge in online shopping, social media usage, and digital communications.
Unfortunately, it also brings a wave of breached passwords. Weak Christmas-themed passwords like Santa123 or JingleBells2024 are part of the problem as they leave millions of accounts vulnerable to cybercriminals.
Good password hygiene is vital to securing your digital presence this Christmas. Let’s look at some simple things you can do to keep yourself and your organization safe.
What is password hygiene?
Password hygiene means the habits we follow when we create and manage our account passwords. Examples of poor password hygiene are:
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Using weak passwords. For example, the world’s most breached password is 123456, along with password and qwerty.
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Reusing passwords across multiple accounts.
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Using overly simple or predictable passwords that cybercriminals can easily guess.
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Failing to update passwords regularly, especially after potential security breaches.
Poor password hygiene can have far-reaching consequences
Weak or reused passwords allow cybercriminals to carry out brute-force attacks, credential stuffing, and phishing, all of which can lead to data breaches. For example, the breaches at Marriott in 2018 and Uber in 2022 were both linked to compromised passwords.
The fallout can be severe, including financial losses, reputational damage, and even identity theft.
Festive passwords are a bad idea
The holiday season usually inspires a trend for weak and predictable passwords.
Cybercheck’s global monitoring shows that the password Christmas has been breached over 2.5 million times. Variations like christmas1 and christmas123 are close behind.
Seasonal passwords are risky because they follow predictable patterns. For example, they combine a Christmas word or phrase with a year or a simple sequence of numbers. This makes them easy to guess. Slightly more complex passwords like merrychristmas or christmastree aren’t any safer.
Poor password hygiene is a worldwide problem
It’s not just an English-speaking issue. As the following chart shows, festive passwords are frequently breached in other languages as well.
Predictably, the English word Christmas is breached the most.
Then we have the Italian Natale and the French Noël. The Swedish Jul makes the hackers’ work even easier with only three letters.
Navidad is the Spanish entry, while Weihnachten gives hackers a Christmas gift in German.
Common misconceptions about cybersecurity
The problem is made worse by some common misconceptions.
For example, many people think additional security measures such as multi-factor authentication (MFA) make password strength less critical. This is a mistake. Even with MFA, passwords are still your first line of defense and must be as strong as possible.
People also assume that hackers only attack large organizations. They think they’re safe because they’re not important enough to be a target. However, cybercriminals are a growing threat to organizations of all sizes, and to private individuals.
Many people find it a hassle to create and manage strong passwords. Instead, they reuse passwords they find easy to remember. Some organizations also leave themselves vulnerable by failing to enforce strong password policies.
Dark web monitoring can help
Dark web monitoring solutions like Cybercheck help you spot poor password hygiene in your organization. For example, the sharing or reuse of passwords across users or accounts. They can help to guide people towards good habits that keep themselves and the organization safe.
Monitoring for compromised passwords has become an essential tool in the fight against cybercrime. At Cybercheck, we infiltrate criminal forums for compromised email addresses, passwords, physical addresses, identity profiles, financial data, and more. If cybercriminals are trading information about you or your organization, we see it and alert you right away.
That means you can take action and stop the cybercriminals before they make you their next victim. This is particularly crucial during the festive season when we usually see a spike in the frequency of cyberattacks.
Wishing you a happy and safe festive season from all of us at Cybercheck
Christmas is a time of joy and celebration. Nobody should have to face the stress and worry of dealing with a compromised account.
Good password hygiene can help you stay safe. Choose strong passwords, avoid Santa123 and Rudolf2024, and leave the cybercriminals out in the cold.
