Better think twice before choosing a password for emails, online bank accounts and airline tickets.
Passwords that show no imagination or distinctiveness are easy prey for information pirates, a new US study says.
A statistical analysis of 28,000 passwords recently stolen from a popular US website and posted on the Internet reveals that people often do the easy thing.
It found that 16 percent took a first name as a password, often their own or one of their children, according to the study published by Information Week.
Another 14 percent relied on the easiest keyboard combinations to remember such as “1234” or “12345678.” For those using English keyboards, “QWERTY”, was popular. Likewise, “AZERTY” scored with people with European keyboards.
Five percent of the stolen passwords were names of television shows or stars popular with young people like “hannah,” inspired by singer Hannah Montana. “Pokemon,” “Matrix,” and “Ironman” were others.
The word “password,” or easy to guess variations like “password1,” accounted for four percent.
Three percent of the passwords expressed attitudes like “I don‘t care,” “Whatever,” “Yes” or “No.”
There were sentimental choices — “Iloveyou” — and their opposite — “Ihateyou.”
Robert Graham, of the company Errata Security, which did the analysis and published the conclusions, advises that to better protect against cyber intrusions: “choose a password that is longer than eight characters with one capital letter and one symbol.”
翻译：
在设置E-mail、网上银行和在线购机票的密码时，最好要多想想。
美国一项最新研究表明，没有想象力或不够新奇的密码容易被盗。
日前，一项针对2.8万个被盗密码的数据分析发现，人们总是爱图省事。这些密码是最近从美国一个人气网站盗取的，并被贴在了网上。
这项在《信息周刊》上公布的研究发现，16%的人用名字作密码，其中大多数是自己或孩子的名字。
另有14%的人为了方便记忆，选择了最简单的组合如“1234”或“12345678”。使用美式键盘的人爱用“QWERTY”作密码，而使用欧式键盘的人则青睐于使用“AZERTY”。
在被盗密码中，有5%是电视节目名或年轻人喜爱的明星的名字，比如歌星汉娜•蒙塔娜的名字“hannah”。也有人选择Pokemon、Matrix和Ironman等等。
有4%的人选择password或容易被猜出的变体如password1作为密码。
3%的密码表达的是一种态度，比如“I don‘t care（我不在乎）”、“Whatever（无所谓）”、“Yes（是）”或“No（不是）”。
还有一些是表达情感的，如“Iloveyou”和“Ihateyou”.
开展并公布该研究的Errata Security公司的罗伯特•格拉汉姆建议，为了更好地抵御网络侵扰，最好“选择长度不少于八个字的密码，同时加入一个大写字母和一个符号。”
