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Sports are a source of inspiration. Whether we need a burst of positive emotions, an example of never giving up, or just want to feel a part of something bigger, we can often find it in sports. Unfortunately, those are not the only things sports inspire. Our latest research reveals that the Tokyo Olympics have been a source of inspiration for a lot of poor passwords. Today, we’re looking at the most popular passwords inspired by Tokyo 2020, explain why it’s a bad idea to use such passwords, and share a few simple and effective ways to up your password security game. Let's jump in.
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Passwords inspired by Tokyo 2020
Current affairs have long been a source of inspiration for poor passwords. The Tokyo 2020 Olympics is the latest event people — despite warnings from cybersecurity experts — turn to for ideas for their passwords.
Our research into passwords related to the Tokyo 2020 Olympic games shows that people used names of sporting events as well as athletes’ names for passwords. While some teams and athletes may be winners on the court or field, their names will surely lose as secure passwords.
Among the most popular Tokyo 2020-related passwords were “basketball” (used 1,413,369 times), “hockey” (used 2,690,778 times) , “football” (used 5,838,986 times), and “golf” (used 3,284,767 times). Athletes’ names were also quite popular password choices during the Olympic Games: “federer” (used 82,897 times), “biles” (used 57,331 times), “osaka” (used 87,725 times), and “asher” (used 1,043,744 times).
Why are Tokyo 2020-inspired passwords risky?
Password security is tricky. Those messages telling you that your password might be weak and you need to include certain characters aren’t there to annoy you but to help you keep your online accounts secure.
What cybersecurity experts consider a good, strong password is made up of a number of characteristics. For example, a strong password should be at least 12 characters long and include upper-case letters, lower-case letters, numbers, and special characters.
When it comes to passwords inspired by the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, we can see that none of them could be considered good or strong passwords. Even worse, most of them are prone to something known as a dictionary attack — a method of hacking a password-protected computer or online account by systematically entering every word in a dictionary as a password. In some instances, cracking Tokyo 2020-inspired passwords could take just a few seconds.
How to create strong passwords to protect your online accounts
Creating a strong password can be tricky. Usually, the longer the password, the better. As mentioned, cybersecurity experts recommend a password that would consist of at least 12 characters. It is also important to avoid including any personally identifiable information in your passwords. For instance, you should avoid using your birth date as a set of required numbers for passwords. It’s also important to understand that using sequential letters or numbers could make your passwords significantly weaker and more prone to being cracked.
Perhaps, the most efficient way to create strong and unique passwords is with the help of a password generator. A password generator is software that is purpose-built to come up with unique and complex passwords on the spot. The NordPass password generator allows you to adjust the length of the passwords and choose whether you want to use special characters and lower-case or upper-case letters. As a result, all generated passwords are completely random.
To further improve your password security, we highly recommend using a password manager such as NordPass. With a password manager, you no longer have to remember all those complex passwords as you can securely store them in an encrypted vault. You also avoid typing those complex passwords thanks to features such as autofill and autosave.
The NordPass password manager is also equipped with advanced security tools that can help you detect weak, reused, and old passwords or find out if your personal data has appeared in a data leak.