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It's World Password Day today, May 7, and whilst that may not sound all that exciting, it's a good reminder that many of us have terrible security protecting our online accounts. Yes, when connecting to Wi-Fi and heading onto the web, millions of homes are putting themselves at risk. Along with weak passwords that can be guessed in seconds, many are also using the same code across multiple accounts, which makes it even easier for cyber crooks to attack.

The latest research from the team at Hybrid Cloud Services suggests that one in eight people use a single password for every account. Around 36 percent use 1 to 3 different passwords for everything and only 19 percent of us have good online habits and use a unique password for every account.

To make matters worse, many codes are ludicrously easy to crack with things such as "admin", "123456" and "password" still commonly used. That's despite endless warnings that they don't offer enough protection.

According to the security team at NordPass, these are the most common passwords in the UK, and if yours features on the list below, it should be changed without delay.

admin

123456

password

12345678

123456789

Password1

Password

12345

Even those who think their accounts are fully secure could do more. It's a good idea to add two-factor authentication to services, which means accounts can't be logged into without a secondary device. Creating long and passwords and using a password manager to help keep on top of things are also good tips.

"We could all take a moment to rethink how we manage passwords," said Matt Cooke, EMEA Cybersecurity Strategist at security firm Proofpoint.

"Passwords are still one of the first lines of defence, but let's be honest, reusing the same ones across different accounts is where things start to fall apart. It is exactly what threat actors rely on, especially when they pair it with convincing phishing campaigns.

"So, if there is a moment to tighten things up, this is it. Skip anything obvious or personal when creating passwords, switch on multi-factor authentication wherever you can, and let a password manager do the heavy lifting. As a rule of thumb, update personal passwords twice a year and business passwords every three months."

Here are three top tips to help keep things secure.

Passphrase Adoption: Create long passphrases by stringing together multiple random words (e.g., 'purple-umbrella-dragon-forest'). These are designed to be more resilient to brute-force attacks while remaining memorable.

Unique and Complex Generation: Security strategies focus on using tools to automatically generate complex, random passwords, ensuring that each account has a high-strength, unique password.

Password Manager Usage: Using a password manager is a critical way to store secrets safely, autofill credentials, and manage the high volume of passwords in a user's digital life.