Live Hack Demonstrations Expose Britons’ Weak Password Practices
Virgin Media O2 enlisted ethical hacker Brandyn Murtagh to retrieve active credentials in minutes from breached data as part of a campaign to reduce account takeover risk.
Overview
- Ethical hacker Brandyn Murtagh retrieved volunteers’ active passwords in under three minutes using only public breach data.
- He also exposed personal information including home addresses, telephone numbers and recent locations that criminals could exploit.
- A Virgin Media O2/OnePoll survey of 2,000 adults found that 60% use basic or reused passwords, 32% use children or pet names and 14% include dates of birth.
- Virgin Media O2 released a “Top 10 Passwords Brits Have Used” list featuring entries like “password1,” “123456” and “iloveyou.”
- The campaign advises Britons to adopt unique passphrases of at least 14 characters, enable two-factor authentication and use password managers.