TORONTO – A recent data breach has compromised the privacy of roughly 100,000 Canadians, leaving many folks concerned that someone, somewhere is judging their choice of passwords.
“Trying to sort out the insurance and my credit score has been a nightmare,” says a teacher in Etobicoke who had her identity stolen and asked that we withhold her name. “But that’s not what I’m losing sleep over,” she says, pausing. “Most of my passwords are variations of the word fart. Fartty, fartpants, fartbutt1988. Knowing that someone out there knows that… that’s tough.”
Anthony Bulatao, an Apple Bar Genius, says this is an increasingly common issue for customers as he often requires their passwords to give them tech support. “A customer came in with a pretty routine problem. I asked for their password, and after kinda staring down at the counter for a bit, they said ‘my_other_ride_is_your_dad_420’. They tried to say it fast but the underscores really dragged it out.”
Cyber security expert Gordie Langkow has seen his fair share of stupid passwords. “It’s honestly embarrassing how childish and often lewd people’s passwords are,” he says, before revealing that one of the most common password among his clients is ‘8===D—’. “And not only is it embarrassing, the hackers are catching on,” Langkow warns.
“But no matter what I say to them, how much I tell them to make their passwords long, random and complex, many of my clients insist on just having ‘69′ as their password.”
Given the public’s attachment to embarrassing passwords, most experts are now recommending a new form of cyber security that requires the user to create passwords that are so stupid and repulsive that even identity thieves won’t be willing to use it.
