Russians were warned about a dangerous feature of the passwords of network users

In Russia, more than 130 million people are active Internet users, 62% of them use only one to four unique passwords for all accounts in social networks, messengers, online stores and other platforms that require authentication. This is evidenced by the data of Informzashchita.

It is noted that the average Russian has more than 30 accounts on various platforms. These can be social networks, messengers, bank accounts, markertplaces, and work portals. At the same time, no more than 6% of users use more than 10 unique passwords, 32% have 5-10 passwords, and the majority are limited to 1-4 combinations.

In 2024, databases with more than 500 million Russian accounts with passwords were sold on the darknet, the company's experts noted.

"The number of data leaks is constantly growing, including user passwords. The price of data is decreasing, so an increasingly wide range of hackers can gain access to it. If a person uses the same password for a social network, a work account, and a banking application, the possibility of losing valuable information, funds, and so on increases many times," he quotes Lenta.Ru Pavel Kovalenko, Director of the Information Protection Anti-Fraud Center.

According to experts, in addition to the variety of characters, an important characteristic of a password is its length, which makes a major contribution to its complexity. The optimal indicator is 12 or more characters, but only about 17% of users use this number of characters. In addition, the frequency of changing the combination on the account is important.

Experts recommended using phrases of 4-5 random words to ensure password security — it is more reliable and easier to remember than a short set of characters. They also advised creating complex and long combinations with letters of different registers, numbers and special characters. It is also important to use unique passwords for accounts that are used regularly.

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Earlier, on June 16, Vladimir Zykov, director of the Association of Professional Users of Social Networks and Messengers, told RT that in order to ward off fraudulent schemes from messengers, it is necessary to act in several directions.

First of all, messengers should implement automatic detection of mass suspicious mailings and calls. We also need to strengthen control over account registration and verification.

On June 1, new rules came into force, according to which Russians will be able to change the password on "Public Services," writes Life.Ru . The innovation is designed to protect citizens from fraudsters trying to gain access to other people's personal data.

According to State Duma deputy Anton Nemkin, now the code for changing the password on Gosuslugi does not arrive during a telephone conversation, NSN reports.

On May 15, it was reported that 97% of Russians surveyed had experienced cyberbullying over the past year. Experts have found that 24% of users use the same password, 60% use different passwords. Four out of five Russians (79%) understand that using one password is unsafe.

To protect their credentials, 39% of Russians surveyed set up two-factor identification wherever or almost wherever possible. However, 42% do this only in mission-critical services.