article_snippet: Millions of internet users still rely upon easy-to-crack passwords such as ‘qwerty’ and ‘123456’, but many people are choosing to use more complex sets of characters for our online accounts.
article_snippet: However, a new study has found these seemingly random passwords may be more obvious to hack than you realise.
article_snippet: Researchers have shown that passwords such as ‘mnbvcxz’,
article_snippet: Entropy is used to determine the strength of a password in terms of ‘information entropy’.
article_snippet: The more bits a word is assigned, based on the number of guesses a word would take to crack, the stronger the password.
article_snippet: The result is 56-bit passwords that look like English but are not, making them easy to remember but harder for hackers to guess.
article_snippet: According to Dr John Clements, a computer and software engineer at the California Polytechnic State University who devised the approach, these are easier to remember than random strings of letters and characters that are often recommended by password generators.
article_snippet: If we’re convinced that random passwords are a good idea, and that recalling a 56-bit password is at least within the realm of possibility, we must try to find a set of passwords that are as memorable as possible.'
article_snippet: Research on passwords has shown that most people tend to use letters or words that are easiest for most people to remember.
article_snippet: Mark Burnett, a Utah-based password researcher who recently published a list of 10 million passwords taken from those shared over the internet, found that the most commonly used password is 123456 followed by the word password.
article_snippet: Online security experts recommend using a random string of letters, numbers and characters that use both upper and lower case letters.
article_snippet: An eight-character password generated in this way can produce around 72 quadrillion possible variations - making it virtually impossible to guess.
article_snippet: By randomly generating letters using an algorthim that selects those letters based on meeting certain pobability rules of it appearing with the two preceeding letters in a piece of text, the method produces random but familiar looking passwords.
highlights_snippet: Computer expert found the approach could generate random but familiar passwords .
  
highlights_snippet: The 56-bit passwords are secure but easier to remember, claim scientist .
  