Commonly Used Passwords

What are passwords? In the olden days, when a messenger came to a king, in order to identify him and make sure that he is not an impostor, the king would give him a word. In order to enter the castle and hold court with the king, he would have to repeat that word to the castle guards to allow him to pass. This concept works similarly in the cyberworld, too.

A person who wants to access your email account has to know that special word in order to pass the email account's security. On entering the right word, the website's security allows the person to pass into the email account.

At the outset, it seems like a perfectly well laid out plan. But, unfortunately, there are some people who try to access (computer hacking) your email account and your details. They do this for several reasons. They may send an illegal email from your account so that the national security cannot catch them.

They may want to discredit you and send illicit emails to your friends through social networking websites for revenge. Or they may also want to get through your Internet-banking account (phishing), and launder away your hard-earned money from your account to theirs.

Hence, in the light of all these Internet crimes, it is essential that you set a password that another person cannot guess. It has to be something that comes from, perhaps, the deepest and the darkest depths of your mind; things you do not generally talk about, so that no one can have an inkling of an idea of what it could be.

There are some common themes followed by people that need to be avoided. After all, it is a matter of Internet privacy. Most common theme is to give the name of their favorite celebrity as the password. It may be an actress, actor, a story-book/movie character, or a sportsman. But, for a person who knows you well, it takes only 4 - 5 attempts to guess it.

The other examples include the names of the email account holder's boyfriend/girlfriend, spouse, or crush. This one too is very easy to guess, and it hardly takes around 3 attempts for the account hacker to guess it. Other people keep the names of their kids or pets, followed by '123' as their password, which is again very simple to guess.

Finally, others follow their loyalties and keep their passwords after their favorite brand, sports club, restaurant, or even the name of their homes. So, if a person knows you very well, it may take him/her only up to 20 attempts to get it right and access your Internet account.

Now, the aforementioned examples can be guessed only by those close to you. But, there are some most popular ones, which people choose to give to their Internet accounts. Surveys have been conducted by the email account providers to show people their mistakes, and to make them more aware of the predictability of their passwords.

Here are some classic examples:

• Password
• 123456
• qwerty
• abc123
• letmein
• monkey
• myspace1
• password1
• blink182
• (first name)

• 12345678
• 696969
• batman
• baseball
• michael
• football
• jesus
• christ1

What people need to understand and learn is that a password is a very sensitive commodity, and people can access your account and tamper with it. Hence, it is very essential not to use these common ones, but use the one that cannot be guessed by anyone.

Make sure that it doesn't remotely have anything to do with you, your life, or the things which you talk about or that are close to you.

Remember, in these times of net crimes, it is always good to be alert and safe and know about Internet safety. Hence, keep changing your password every 6 months so that the probability of guessing it is reduced to a considerable extent.