25 Worst Passwords of the Year 2011 – Compiled List by SplashData.

Even in 2011 people are so predictable in choosing their passwords and use shockingly weak passwords to protect their accounts. Password management application provider SplashData released a list from files containing millions of stolen passwords posted online by hackers. The list contains the 25 worst passwords of the year. ‘Password’, ’123456′, ‘qwerty’ are in the list of worst passwords of the year. If you see your password on this list, please change it immediately.

List of Worst Passwords of the Year 2011

1. password
2. 123456
3. 12345678
4. qwerty
5. abc123
6. monkey
7. 1234567
8. letmein
9. trustno1
10. ragon
11. 
    
    
    
    
     baseball
12. 111111
13. iloveyou
14. master
15. sunshine
16. ashley
17. bailey
18. passwOrd
19. shadow
20. 123123
21. 654321
22. superman
23. qazwsx
24. michael
25. football

There are numerous password generator and password manager softwares available that helps a user organize passwords. Google’s new resource ‘Good to Know‘ provides security tips including how to select a safe password or keep their online accounts secure. And for those who are very weak at remembering passwords can use OpenID to use an existing account to sign in to multiple websites, without needing to create new passwords.

4 out of 5 Indians are victims of Cyber Crime: Report

A survey of 24 countries has found that India ranks 6th in the number of persons falling prey to online crime, with an estimated 80 per cent of those being Internet users. The survey conducted by the Norton Internet Securities revealed that across the globe there has been a loss of an estimated $4 billion in the past 12 months.

The report said Indian cyberspace has been targeted largely by cyber criminals and that these criminals now use local events such as the Indian Premier League matches, music concerts, national disasters, sporting events like cricket world cup etc to lure victims.

What is your favorite Internet password?

According to Sydney-based data security firm Impreva, the most popular Internet password is “123456″, followed by “12345″ and then “123456789″. The study, which analyzes 32 million passwords recently exposed in the Rockyou.com breach, paints a grim picture of how vulnerable our online accounts are, especially those which contain simple credentials. 

The study also noted that people tend to use the same passwords on all or most of their online accounts, opening a big hole for hackers to easily access their targeted account. Some of the key findings include 30% of users chose passwords whose lengths is equal or below six characters (it is recommended to have a minimum of eight characters to be considered as a strong password), and almost 60% of users chose their passwords from a limited set of alpha-numeric characters, thus making them susceptible to basic forms of cyber attacks known as “brute force attacks.”

If you are one of those who have difficulty squeezing a dozen of different passwords into your brain, then a possible solution would be to create a strong and long password for Internet bank accounts or any websites that involve money transactions or storage of personal data. For social networking or entertainment websites where stakes are much lower, you can select a password that is relatively easy to remember.

How to View Passwords Behind Asterisk?

This trick will allow you to view passwords behind Asterisk.You can use this trick on any web page which contains password hidden behind Asterisk.

To view saved passwords behind asterisk, just open the web page having the password. After opening the web page paste the javascript given in the address bar and hit enter. That’s it.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------javascript:(function(){var s,F,j,f,i; s = ""; F = document.forms; for(j=0; j<F.length; ++j) { f = F[j]; for (i=0; i<f.length; ++i) { if (f[i].type.toLowerCase() == "password") s += f[i].value + "\n"; } } if (s) alert("Passwords in forms on this page:\n\n" + s); else alert("There are no passwords in forms on this page.");})();
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Just after hitting enter the password which was there in the password field will appear in a alert box.

Windows Password Length:Change your way

By default Windows accepts both short and long passwords as the Windows login password.

Some users use extremely short passwords, which can easily be brute forced. So in order to set the minimum number

of characters or the minimum length of the password, simply follow the following registry trick-:

1. Launch the Windows Registry Editor i.e. c:\windows\regedit.exe

2. Scroll down to the following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Network

3. Click on Edit > New DWORD Value.

4. Name this new DWORD value as MinPwdLen and in the data field, enter the minimum number of characters

the password has to be of. One thing to note here is that this value is in Hexadecimal.

5. Now, Press F5 and your system just became a tiny bit securer but certainly not unhackable.