New study reveals the most popular passwords used by Gen-Z, and they're worse than an 80-year-old
A new study has revealed what the most popular passwords used by Gen-Z are, and they are worse than an 80-year-old.
It turns out that the young generation are even worse with their password habits than senior citizens.
And while we might believe that the generation who grew up with the internet would be super tech savvy, they are actually not the best at maintaining strong cybersecurity, according to reports.
In fact, new research by password manager NordPass uncovered that the most popular password to use for people born after 1997 is ‘12345’, with ‘password’ being the fifth most popular choice.
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Boomers are only slightly safer than this, with their favorite password being ‘123456’.
In the report, the authors said: “We tend to assume that the younger generations online are digital natives – having grown up immersed in the online world, they possess an innate understanding of cyber security and its risks. However, our research has debunked this misconception.
“Despite significant efforts over the years to educate users about cybersecurity through awareness campaigns, our data shows little improvement in widespread password hygiene and security habits.”
They continued: “It’s official: ‘123456’ has once again claimed the controversial title of the world’s most common password — and one of the weakest. That marks six out of seven years this password has topped our chart, with ‘password’ claiming the honor just once. The message is clear: Users favor simplicity, even at the cost of personal security.”
They went on to explain: “Much to our surprise, password quality is poor across all generations. Where we expected discerning differences, we actually faced a striking uniformity in vulnerabilities. ‘12345’ and ‘123456’ emerged as the top password choice in every age group, and other simple numeric sequences we saw in the global list, like ‘1234567’ or ‘1234567890,’ also ranked high.”
A similar study was conducted by Bitwarden earlier this year which revealed that 72% of Gen Z participants reuse the same credentials across multiple platforms.
Evan Kostovinos, who is the vice president of privacy, safety and security at Google, said: “Digitally-native Gen Z users are bypassing outdated security norms like passwords, opting for more advanced authentication tools.
“While at first glance not regularly updating passwords seems like poor security hygiene, the willingness to gravitate towards more modern sign-in methods that are both safer and easier to use, is a good thing.
“Older methods like passwords are not only painful to maintain, but are also more prone to phishing and often leaked through data breaches.”