Why reusing passwords across websites puts your online accounts at serious risk. Learn how credential stuffing works, why password reuse is dangerous, and the best ways to protect your digital identity
Why reusing passwords across websites is dangerous
Online accounts are almost completely protected by passwords as their first line of defence.
Most of the time, a password is an important part of the process of securing personal information either when you log in to an email account, bank account, or shop online, or use social media outlets and/or work applications.
While more people have become aware of cybersecurity issues, reuse of passwords has become the single greatest mistake that users make regarding cybersecurity online.
We find many people replicate the same password, or minor deviations from that password, across several different websites, simply because it is “convenient” and/or very easy to remember.
What seems to be the easy route to take can often lead to very negative results. If you are using the same password on several different websites, then one single data breach at a company you use your account with will likely give hackers the opportunity to use that password (and username) to gain access to many other accounts that you have online.
This method is called “credential stuffing”, and it has become popular with cybercriminals because they have found that the easiest way to exploit someone is through their habits (such as using the same passwords on multiple sites) rather than through some type of technical vulnerability.
As cyber attacks increasingly evolve and become more complex, while data breaches continue to occur at an increasing pace, reusing passwords has become a serious risk to the cybersecurity of individuals, organizations, businesses, etc.
The aim of this guide is therefore to illustrate why reusing a password across multiple websites poses an immediate threat to your security and how hackers exploit your credentials once they have been stolen; to provide real-life examples of how hackers have been able to exploit passwords; and to provide you with concrete steps you can take in protecting yourself from having your online accounts compromised.
What Is the Meaning of Password Reuse?
Password Reuse means using the same password to log in to multiple accounts. For example, a person may use one password to log in to: Their Email account, Their Facebook account, Their Online banking account, etc.
Amazon
Netflix
Cloud Storage
All of these are examples of work accounts
There are many users who make little changes to their password by either adding a number or changing one character. Examples are;
Password123
Password1234
Password123!
I would say that these are very similar variations and provide little extra protection because malicious users and have likely already thought about this kind of thing. Many people use multiple accounts on the internet, sometimes dozens, or maybe even hundreds, and because of this, password reuse is very common. Unfortunately, with the convenience comes lack of security
How Password Reuse Is A Very Serious Security Risk
The first step is that a website gets compromised by a hacker. There is usually only one website that is compromised. A hacker can take advantaged of:
Software programme vulnerabilities.
Weak security controls.
Phishing attacks.
Insider threats.
Misconfigured servers.
Attackers during the breach incident take away customer information such as their usernames and passwords. A password is usually stored in an encrypted or a hashed format, but attackers may still be able to recover password because of poor security.
Step 2: Stolen Credentials Appear Online
After obtaining login credentials, like many cybercriminals do, they are:
a) Being sold on underground markets;
b) shared within hacking communities; and
c) used in automated attack tools, among others.
A big collection of stolen usernames and passwords is a valuable criminal resource.
Step 3: Credential Stuffing Starts
The use of passwords more than once leads to a serious threat in the form of credential stuffing. Attackers typically employ automated tools that will help them to verify the credibility of the stolen usernames and passwords across a large number of sites, i.e., hundreds. Instances of where these attacks occur include:
- Email providers
- banking systems
- Social platforms
- eCommerce stores
- Streaming platforms
- Platforms of cryptocurrencies, e.g., exchanges, etc
- cloud storage providers
If the same password is used in more than one service, the attackers will be able to compromise the account immediately.
Step 4: The Compromise of Multiple Accounts
When attackers succeed in accessing one account, they frequently search for and attack other accounts as well.
A hackers will be after a compromised email account, it can be used to reset the password for many other accounts. This can create a snowball effect, in which hackers can get access to multiple accounts once they have acessed one account.
STEP 5: Financial and Personal Loss Occurs!
Once the attackers have access to the different accounts, they can:
Make purchases without the victim’s consent
Transfer money
Steal personal information
Impersonate victims
Commit identity theft
Obtain confidential business information
Lock users out of their own accounts
Recovering from these incidents can be a lengthy process (several weeks or even months).
The Reason So Many People Use The Same Password On All Of Their Accounts
Despite all the professional advice that users should never reuse their password, many users still do and here are some reasons why:
Convenience
It seems inconvenient to have to create and remember 50 different passwords.
Password Fatigue
Most people today have multiple accounts they manage through different websites or applications
Creating unique passwords for each account is an extra effort that many users are not willing to expend.
Underestimating the Danger
Lots of people think they have nothing to worry about because they are just one user among millions of others out there and no hacker would ever choose to hack into their account. Credential stuffing attacks can happen to anyone whose login credentials are included in a breached database and can be performed by automated attacks made by hackers.
Bad Password Practices
Many users create predictable variations when they could be generating wholly new and unique passwords.
This doesn’t offer much help from advanced attackers.
Benefits of Totally Unique Passwords
By moving to totally unique passwords, you gain major benefits.
Reduces Damage from Data Breaches
If one site gets hacked, they won’t be able to get into all of your other accounts.
Safeguards Banking & Payment (Financial) Accounts
You greatly decrease your chances of unauthorized access of your banking or payment account if you have a different password for each.
Safeguards Email Accounts
Because email accounts are frequently used for recovering access to other services, a unique password to protect your email account brings additional security to your entire account structure.
Enhances Business Security
Employees who use unique passwords lower the company’s overall risk of cybersecurity attacks and breaches.
Support for MFA (Multi-Factor Authentication) Strong Use of Unique Passwords plus MFA is much stronger than using either method alone.
It Comes With Its Own Set of Risks and Challenges
Credential stuffing attacks by the millions
The use of automated tools means that cyber criminals can test millions of credentials stolen from various sources per day. Once the credential database is available these types of attacks require little/no effort from the cyber criminals.
Identity Theft
Hacked accounts may freely display any of the following:
Complete names
Phone numbers
Banking details.
Addresses
Identity theft and fraudulent activity can be done based on that data.
Business Email Compromise
If a person reuses the same password, a hacker can also find that password was used on company accounts, so the probability the company account was breached or the company experienced a financial theft increases.
Loss of Personal Data
Cloud storage, photo storage, and sensitive messages all become potentially available to a hacker, as well as additional personal documents.
Long Term Consequences
A stolen personal credential can remain available on the criminal black market for nearly a decade following a large data breach. Reusing passwords increases the number of accounts at risk of being breached by cybercriminals.
Real-world instances
E-commerce Website Breach.
An individual uses an identical password on both an online retail website and his/her email address. That retailer gets breached, and an attacker uses the credentials to gain access to the individual’s email account and subsequently changes the individual’s password for multiple other online accounts.
Lesson learned from this use case: One stolen credential may expose all the individual credentials on the entire internet.
Credentials for an Entertainment Service
An attacker buys credentials from a compromised entertainment service. Because of password reuse, the attacker successfully logs into multiple unrelated internet accounts using the stolen credentials.
Lesson learned from this use case: All accounts should have different passwords.
Employee of a Small Business
The different case studies involve two situations: The individual, who creates a social media account that uses the same password as his/her company email account; and after the individual’s social media account is breached, the cybercriminals gain access to the company’s network.
One of the lessons learned from this case study is that the way in which employees protect their personal information is directly related to how secure the company’s computers are.
Another victim of online banking fraud was the user who used the same passwords for multiple websites and when he/she was a victim of a credential-stuffing attack, the hacker was able to access the victim’s financial account and transfer money without permission.
The lesson from this case is that, when protecting the accounts in which you keep your money, it is important to use a good password.
A Unique Password for Every Account. All Important Accounts Should Have Separate Passwords. That Way, if one gets hacked, nothing else can be impacted too.
Create a Secure password;
The characteristics of passwords should include being lengthy, random, and difficult to predict. Additionally, you must refrain from using names, birth dates and other easy to remember words
Passwords Manager.
The password manager is able to generate and store random passwords for your individual accounts, which saves you from the need to memorize your multiple passwords.
Activate Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA);
Authenticator verify in addition to password, and this makes it difficult for a hacker to access your account even if they already possess your correct password.
Change Passwords After Data Breaches
change the compromised password
Change the password of any accounts that had the same password
Monitor Account Activity
Review:
Login details
Security notifications are a significant aspect of a bank’s daily transactions. Security alerts help detect early signs of attack and can help reduce the extent of damage after a security breach, while password reset messages are used as an added security check to make sure your account is safe.
Saved Passwords should be Checked on a Routine basis.
Regularly check all passwords that you have saved to see if you are using the same password in more than one place or if any of your saved passwords are weak. Most of the advanced web browsers and password managers now offer reports that will allow you to see the condition of all your passwords.
Emerging Future Trends
Passwordless Access
Passwordless access is emerging as a secure alternative to traditional passwords as it is based on cryptographic authentication versus shared secrets.
Password Free Authentication
Several organizations are experiencing the adoption of authentication methodologies based on:
Biometrics
Hardware Security Keys
Mobile Device
AI Driven Threat Detection.
Artificial intelligence is being increasingly used to identify suspicious login patterns associated with credential-stuffing attacks.
Breach Detection Improvements
Organizations are continuing to invest in breach detection systems that will detect user passwords that have been compromised and rapidly notify the user that their password has been breached.
Authentication standards continue strengthening
Many future authentication systems will be combining multiple methods of identity verification or authentication to increase overall authentication of identity.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is reusing passwords dangerous?
When you use the same password on multiple sites, an attacker who finds that password through a breach on one site can easily use it to log in to your other accounts.
What is Credential Stuffing?
Credential Stuffing is an automated attack where attackers feed stolen usernames and passwords into as many sites as possible in hopes that the credentials were reused.
Do Slightly Different Passwords Suffice?
No; slight changes are pretty easy for attackers to guess, and as a result, they won’t really protect you from the methods attackers use now.
What is the Safest way of managing many Passwords?
A reliable password management programme enables users to create unique complex passwords for every single account they own as well as securely store them all in one place.
Can Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) Replace Strong Passwords?
The answer is No. Multi-factor authentication provides another layer of protection, but it should be combined with unique and strong passwords to achieve the most protection possible.
Conclusion
One of the easiest yet dangerous cyber-security mistakes that people make on the internet is to use the same passwords. It may seem easy to use one password for all of the sites you log onto, but it creates a domino effect and once there is a breach in one area of the data it will easily cause all of your: email addresses, bank accounts, social media accounts, cloud storage, and even work accounts to be breached!
Today’s advanced online criminals mostly use credential stuffing since it’s cost-effective, automated and succeeds with users who use the same passwords. With each data breach that discloses millions of log-in credentials yearly, creating unique passwords is no longer a luxury; it is now necessary to protect yourself online.
You can protect yourself, and that’s good news. A password manager, a good set of passwords (unique ones), multi-factors and fast action on breach notifications will cut your risk a great deal. When you combine these two areas of security best practices (good habits and monitoring your accounts on a regular basis), it gives you the protection you need to protect your digital identity in this highly-connected world we live in today.
