Passwords are the Weakest Link in Enterprise IT Security: Study

ZDNet: According to the Trustwave 2012 Global Security Report, enterprise IT still hasn’t gotten the message about the importance of strong passwords. After examining 300 data breaches that occurred in 2011, the study’s authors concluded that 80 percent of the incidents resulted from the use of weak passwords. In many cases, IT administrators or users did not bother to change default passwords. “The use of weak and/or default credentials continues to be one of the primary weaknesses exploited by attackers for internal propagation,” they wrote. “This is true for both large and small organizations, and largely due to poor administration.”

According to the study, the top 10 most common passwords connected to the data breaches included the following:

1. Password1
2. welcome
3. password
4. Welcome1
5. welcome1
6. Password2
7. 123456
8. Password01
9. Password3
10. P@ssw0rd