You’re mad at Sony. We get it. But it turns out that users really aren’t much better at abiding by best security practices, according to software architect Troy Hunt’s quick parse of the account info released by LulzSec.
Of the 37,608 released passwords, only 4 per cent had three or more character types, with half made up of just one character type. Of that half, 90 per cent used all lowercase. Less than 1 per cent of all users used even a single a non-alphanumeric character. Among the accounts that made appearances in both Sony directories, 92 per cent(!!) reused their password. And to hammer home the point, Hunt makes a callback to Gawker’s brush with the Hacker Kingdom to report that a full 67 per cent of shared users used an identical password in the Gawker and Sony systems.
Thanks for bringing back the fuzzy memories, Troy. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a date with a random character generator. [Troy Hunt via Hacker News]