Photo by Taskin Ashiq on Unsplash
We recently wrote about how important it is to utilize complex and unique passwords for all of your online accounts. Popular companies such as Facebook, Reddit, and Yahoo (to name only a few) have all experienced breaches that put their users (and their personal information) at risk.
That’s where tools like RoboForm come in. With the click of a button, you can easily generate strong, random, and unique passwords whenever you need them. Unfortunately, too many companies and brands are still not following best practices when it comes to prompting users to create good passwords that are complex and unique. Until they do, it’s up to each of us to protect ourselves.
Here are some companies many of us rely on that could be doing better when it comes to protecting the information of their users, ranked from bad to terrible:
5. Southwest
If you want to use a very long and secure password, Southwest won’t let you. They cap the length at just 16 characters, barely enough to create a strong password. In their Terms and Conditions, they spell out that they are not responsible for unauthorized access to your account and will not replace stolen points or awards. It might be a good idea to take a minute to confirm your password passes muster, yes?
4. Walmart
Considering Walmart’s market penetration and influence, we’re disappointed that they accept passwords with as few as 7 characters. Their system even allowed us to choose passwor as a password.
3. Facebook
Facebook’s minimum password length is 6 characters. That’s right: Despite having spent months in the news following well-publicized data breaches, they still allow users to have 6-character passwords. If you use a password management tool like RoboForm to generate and store a proper password, you won’t need to settle for a bad password just because it’s easy to remember at 1 a.m.
2. Most Major Content Streaming Services
We were unable to find a major site in 2019 that had a lower password character minimum than Sling and Netflix—just 4! Other streaming services barely did better. Disney+ passwords must be between 6 and 25 characters. Hulu, Pandora, and Amazon also had a six character minimums. Large streaming content providers claim they are trying to crack down on large scale password sharing, but their password policies indicate otherwise.
Sling: 4-30 characters
Netflix: 4-60 characters
Disney+: 6-25 characters
Amazon: 6-128 characters
Hulu: 6 characters minimum
Pandora: 6 characters minimum
Password character requirements as of 12/27/2019
Pro tip: If you’re looking to share your streaming service password with a member of your household, use RoboForm’s secure Sharing feature. That way, you can pick a strong password instead of a bad one you can shout across the living room.
1. Vietnam Airlines
Requiring just 6 characters is not a recipe for a secure password—but Vietnam Airlines takes insecurity a step further by restricting password length to a maximum of 8! Vietnam Airlines is the undisputed champion in our 2019 hall of shame.
A 2020 New Year’s Resolution
Just because popular services like Netflix and Facebook allow you to pick poor passwords, doesn’t mean you should. The great thing about RoboForm is that it makes it easy for you to create strong passwords, allowing you to use these services securely. If you’re not already, make 2020 the year you resolve to use a unique password for every site you log into.
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