This story is from April 21, 2009

Pswrd? You guessed it!

It’s a hacker’s dream – easy to remember, and therefore easy to guess passwords. One of the worst ones? The easiest to remember – ‘password’!
Pswrd? You guessed it!
You may promise to share the trials and tribulations of life during the saat phere, but there���s one thing that husbands and wives keep to themselves ��� their passwords, yaar!Why?
Well, who knows it might just turn out to be the name of that hot ex, whom he/she is most insecure about! But, a recent study reveals that your top-guarded secret might not be that confidential, or for that matter that hard to guess.
1x1 polls
It���s most likely to be the most obvious one ��� the digits ���123456���, in that order. Or the nickname of that cute girl that you dated in college. The initials of your first and last name, combined with your date of birth. Your favourite swear word. Your home address. Or simply, the word ���password���, at times prefixed or suffixed with ���invalid���, ���wrong���, ���my���, 'forgot���, ���remember���, et al.
That, of course, explains why hackers have a field day. We got some young password keepers to share their silly, too obvious and not-so-hard-to-guess passwords.
Password: ditto
A first year student of Kamala Nehru College, Vandana Dhaiya says, ���When I first created an email account, I ended up using the same word for my username and password. Wonder, why I did that!��� And her passwords still happen to be quite predictable. ���Using the names of parents, your fianc��, friends or pet is silly. I think common phrases like ���Ilovemyself��� or ���iamgreat��� are maybe very obvious, but then, not everybody can guess those,��� she reasons. Right, try telling these to the hackers!

Password? uh....
But then sometimes the passwords are so weird that the person who���s thought of it can���t recall it himself. Aman Khullar, manager at a private bank, says, ���My worst one was ���whatismypassword���. I had a very bad time trying to recall it!��� she says, adding, ���That was also my hint question, but I still couldn���t figure it out.��� Another easy to remember ��� and guess ��� password comes from Vikram Singh, a debt manager with a private firm. ���It���s ���ABC123.��� Also, since one has to remember many of them, I once went with ���psswdbank���, ���psswdmail���, ���psswdcinema���, etc, for various accounts.���
Password: Obviously!
Pradeep Bisla, territory manager in the manufacturing sector, chuckles as he discloses the password to his online bank account. ���The requirement was an eight digit password, so I simply keyed in ���eightdigit���.��� Navdeep Brar, who works in the IT sector, was more precise ��� ���I used ���eight888���,��� he says. Sanjana Grover, a Statistics (Hons) student from Hindu College, locked her PC for years using the brand name of her operating system as the password. ���The word was staring at me right in my face, so it was an instant choice,��� she says. ���I���ve also used a combination of my name and mobile number.���
Now, now, don���t go trying these passwords in your beau���s computer. Chances are, he has already changed his.
End of Article
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