That stat about reused passwords blew my mind

I was reading through the Verizon Data Breach report last night and saw that 80 percent of hacking breaches are still from weak or stolen passwords. That number surprised me because I thought most attacks were from some fancy malware or zero day exploits. Turns out people just reuse the same password across 10 different sites and one leak screws them all. I looked at my own list and sure enough I had 3 accounts sharing a password from 2018. Has anyone else cleaned up their password habits after seeing a stat like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

rileygonzalez1d ago

My coworker Dave used the SAME password for his email, banking, and some random forum he signed up for in 2012. One day the forum got hacked and suddenly someone was trying to log into his bank account from Russia. He only caught it because his bank texted him about a suspicious login attempt. Now he has a notebook with different passwords written down like a crazy person but at least he hasn't been hacked since.

dylanh811d ago

Wait, so the bank alerted him before any money got stolen? That's lucky timing. @rileygonzalez did Dave have 2FA turned on before that happened, or did this scare him into setting it up after? I'm curious because most people I know who get hacked still don't enable two-factor even after they get burned. They just write stuff down in a notebook like he did. Also, what was the forum he signed up for in 2012 that got owned? Just wondering if it was some random gaming site or a cooking recipe board. Actually kind of hilarious he went from zero password management to a full physical notebook with all his logins in one spot. That's basically the same problem, just analog.