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Happy World Password Day! What's your embarrassing password story?

Posted by Juwan for Keeper Security
General IT Security Holidays


Happy World Password Day everyone. Today is a perfect day to tighten up your defenses and make sure your accounts are secure. I'm sure we're all password strength pros by now but we weren't always that way. I'd like to hear what are some things you used to do with your passwords that you'd never do now. 

What's your embarrassing password story? 

(Mine is that as a teen I used to use "password" as a password.)

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Juwan for Keeper Security

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10 Replies

  • I was trying to copy a YouTube link into a Twitch chat, but accidentally pasted my password instead...

    Fastest password change ever! (No more Copy/paste my password)

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  • I asked a fellow employee his password.

    He responded with "I have no clue!"

    I said seriously, what is your password, please type it in for me.

    So he started to type "I  H A V E  N O  C L U E !"

    Sure enough that was his password.

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  • I suppose, embarrassing in hind sight, I used to have a password system that was based on the names of moons in our solar system.

    Also, back when I was just a dufus kid, I would often use swear words in my passwords. That causes some embarrassment when those passwords need to be spoken out loud in mixed company....

    I also have an interesting (not so much embarrassing) password story.

    Many (many) years ago, my coworker and I were playing around with l0phtcrack to audit passwords on our NT domain. We were able to crack every user's password inside of a day except one user. We decided to let it run for a few days and still, it was unable to crack it. We then let it run for a few weeks and still couldn't crack it.

    We finally reached out to the user (he was one of the devs) and he told us his password. It opened my eyes to how a secure password was constructed. He had used two words separated by a symbol with a digit and more symbols intermixed. Keep in mind that this was the late '90s before complex passwords were really in the public awareness.

    It kind of blew my mind at the time and I still use that template when I need to construct a memorable secure password.

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  • I don't have any password stories that are embarrassing to me, but I do have a couple that may have been embarrassing to others involved! 😁

    Story A]  Back in the days of Win95, I had a screensaver password set on my work PC - not a particularly secure one, because it didn't need to be as my PC was in a physically secure area and if I wasn't around I usually locked my PC.

    One day we had a couple of vendor reps waiting for us while we finished our team meeting and one of them commented on me having a screensaver password set.  Just for fun, I invited/challenged them to try and crack it.  They still hadn't succeeded by the time we finished our team meeting - I think they gave up - so I told them what it was: "pass". 😂

    Story B] Years ago in a previous job (same job as story A actually), I had one of those occasions where I needed to fix something on someone's PC and I needed to login as them.  They weren't there at the time and before I could go find them, I noticed a Post-It note on their montior and yup, it was their password list; January96 was crossed out, February96 was crossed out, but March96 (at the bottom of the list) wasn't.  I thought "Surely not!", I entered their username, entered "March96" in the password box and Boom! I was logged in as them. 🤦‍♂️

    I did what I needed to do and IIRC I removed the Post-It note.  I then told them not to write their password on a note attached to their monitor, and I possibly also suggested a different password schema.  I got back to the IT office and told the senior tech about it and he (a Scotsman) blew his stack!  He stormed off and found the perpetrator and told her off himself. 😡

    Roll forward a couple of months and I had occasion to do something on that person's PC again, under their login.  I get to their office, they're not there, and I think "I wonder ..." and proceed to enter their username and for the password I tried "May96" and Boom! I'm logged in as them!  Well, at least there was no Post-It note on the monitor! 🤷 

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  • This still happens to me - I don't pay attention and I end up typing my password into the username box.  

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  • Most of the time I usually give password that I can remember. Once I forgot and I went to each website for the forget password option.

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  • Jason1121 wrote:

    This still happens to me - I don't pay attention and I end up typing my password into the username box.  

    I've been guilty of this one a few times myself so I get it haha

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  • BenoitT wrote:

    I was trying to copy a YouTube link into a Twitch chat, but accidentally pasted my password instead...

    Fastest password change ever! (No more Copy/paste my password)

    I've done something similar before - I was thinking I was typing in the right Tab when entering a password in - I typed really fast and didn't even think twice!. Turns out it posted in my business Slack group. Quickly deleted it, but the shame! Oh... The shame. 

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  • Juwan for Keeper Security wrote:

    Jason1121 wrote:

    This still happens to me - I don't pay attention and I end up typing my password into the username box.  

    I've been guilty of this one a few times myself so I get it haha

    What's funny is that when you do that, your password is saved into a clear text log somewhere, so, at the very least, your admin probably knows your password when you do this.

    I started having our event log send me the contents of the event whenever someone would enter a bad password. You would be surprised (or maybe not) how many times I see people's passwords because of this.

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  • L5257 wrote:

    Juwan for Keeper Security wrote:

    Jason1121 wrote:

    This still happens to me - I don't pay attention and I end up typing my password into the username box.  

    I've been guilty of this one a few times myself so I get it haha

    What's funny is that when you do that, your password is saved into a clear text log somewhere, so, at the very least, your admin probably knows your password when you do this.

    I started having our event log send me the contents of the event whenever someone would enter a bad password. You would be surprised (or maybe not) how many times I see people's passwords because of this.

    Huh that's really interesting. I hope my admin thought my password was well put together at least! 

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