'Samsung' was the most commonly-used password in 2021, study shows

Samsung, or rather "samsung" with a lowercase S, is one of the most commonly used passwords in at least 30 countries, a recent study by password management solution company Nordpass has showed.

According to SamMobile, using the name of your smartphone/TV/home appliance brand, for example, Samsung, as a password is not the worst offender, but it has grown in popularity in recent years.

While the "samsung" password ranked 198th in popularity in 2019, it rose to 189th in 2020 and 78th in 2021, breaking the top-100 mark last year.

The most popular password is "password," which was reportedly chosen by nearly 5 million users, while other commonly used passwords include "123456," "123456789," and "guest", according to the report.

In the case of "samsung," it turns out that it is not the only brand-based password used by a large number of online users.

According to a recent report, a simple and predictable password can be decrypted in less than one second, whereas combining lowercase and uppercase letters with numbers can also produce variable results.

A seven-digit password containing all of those elements can be decrypted in about seven seconds, while an eight-digit password takes about seven minutes, said the report.

The research firm discovered that the majority of commonly used passwords can be decrypted in less than one second because they are short and consist only of numbers or letters with no uppercase characters, the report added.

--IANS

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