Most commonly used PINs putting smart phones to cyber risks

In today’s world, almost everyone owns a smartphone. In fact, it has become a necessity rather than a materialistic want. To secure the device from fraudulent access, mobile operating system manufacturers are coming up with various security features, among which phone PIN is the most commonly used option.

However, according to a research study carried out by the SANS Institute, the most commonly used PIN on mobile phones is 1234. The other 19 most commonly used phone PINs that put their owners at cyber risks are as follows:

1111
0000
9999
1212
7777
1004
2000
4444
2222
6969
3333
5555
6666
1122
1313
8888
4321
2001
1010

Moreover, mobile phones operating on iOS 14 and Android 11 are enabled with a security feature to set a 6-digit pin, and among them, the commonly used digits are:

123456
654321
111111
000000
123123
666666
121212
112233
789456
159753

Therefore, for those using any of the above-mentioned PINs to secure their devices, it is high time to change their passcodes to something more secure, easy to remember but hard to guess for hackers.

Now, the big question is, why are smartphones vulnerable to hackers when these PINs are used?

Well, according to the SANS Institute, 26% of devices using the above-mentioned passcodes were easily hacked by cybercriminals in the past three years. This means that hackers can use software to easily guess the passcode and enter the device to steal information.

Researchers at ESET recommend mobile phone users to use an alpha-numeric passcode if possible and even set up biometric authentication to access their phone data.

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