Came across a website recently called HOW SECURE IS MY PASSWORD and was delighted to find that it would take a desktop PC about 4 thousand years to crack my password (long past my sell by date). However I personally can honestly put that down to having a friend who taught me about the importance of passwords. You should go now and check your password but be sure to come back and read the rest of this post 🙂

We speak of Internet Safety and automatically we think of cyber-bullying or worse but there are other elements of internet safety that should not be forgotten. We should teach children the online risks that exist for their devices and model device protection. We need to explain that as they grow up in this digital world that it is important to protect their personal data for their own and other people’s privacy. We should explain how a secure password can help prevent internet fraud. HOW SECURE IS MY PASSWORD is an easy to use website and is something that could be shown to a class as a stimulus for a conversation on this topic.

SplashData’s annual list compiles the millions of stolen passwords made public throughout the year and assembles them in order of popularity. A glance at the top ten below reveals that the need to teach children (and some adults) about this is ever important.

1. 123456 (Unchanged)

2. password (Unchanged)

3. 12345 (Up 17)

4. 12345678 (Down 1)

5. qwerty (Down 1)

6. 123456789 (Unchanged)

7. 1234 (Up 9)

8. baseball (New)

9. dragon (New)

10. football (New)