National: the most common passwords that leave you vulnerable to hacking are revealed

Football teams such as Liverpool and Manchester along with the names of well-known personalities are the most common password choices for Irish people, putting them at a higher risk of being hacked. 

Cyber Skills has urged people to reconsider their security choices. 

The tech company used HaveIBeenPwned.com, a website that tracks passwords that have been subject to data breaches, to discover the riskiest passwords for Irish people. 

“123456” remains the most guessable passwords in the world, appearing in more than 37 million breached accounts, according to security records searched by HaveIBeenPwned.com.

The password “password” appears in 9.7 million breached documents, while “Liverpool” showed up 448,000 times.

The most commonly hacked passwords globally are "123456", "qwerty" and "password".

Irish people have been advised to re-evaluate and strengthen their password choices, as part of Cyber Security month.

"What many consider a 'strong' password, referencing cultural touchpoints, is in fact easily deciphered by cybercriminals," said Dr Hazel Murray from Cyber Skills.

"There's a common misconception that if a password contains personal information or interests that it will be strong."

"Good passwords are multiple words strung together and avoid easily recognisable phrases," Dr Murray said.

Dr Richard Browne, Director of the National Cyber Security Centre, said people should use strong, long diverse passwords.

"The longer the password, the more difficult it is to break," Dr Browne said.

"If you go to ten characters or more it gets very very difficult to break it," he added.

Cyber Security Month is an annual campaign to raise awareness about the importance of cybersecurity.

Through a series of events, workshops and online resources, the campaign aims to empower individuals and businesses to take control of their digital lives and protect themselves against cyber threats.