Syrian President's Email Hacked... His Password Was 12345

from the kind-of-thing-an-idiot-would-have-on-his-luggage dept

Wed, Feb 8th 2012 10:57am — Mike Masnick

Well, this is rather incredible. With the news that Anonymous hacked the offices of the Syrian President and dumped a ton of emails online... comes the news that the hack was insanely easy. Why? Because, apparently, the password was 12345. No joke. Of course, that's considered one of the worst passwords of all time. And, as pointed out by Lauren Weinstein, this is the exact same password that was immortalized by Dark Helmet (the original one, rather than our local Techdirt hero) as being the stupidest password he's ever heard -- and the "kind of thing an idiot would have on his luggage!"

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Filed Under: 12345, anonymous, email, hackers, passwords, syria

48 Comments

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GMacGuffin (profile), 8 Feb 2012 @ 10:59am

Ha, that scene from Spaceballs comes up a lot in IT-land (case study for clients).
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Lord Binky, 8 Feb 2012 @ 11:06am

Why is it...
Why is it you give people a list of passwords and say "DO NOT USE EVER" and your guaranteed to get some smart ass that immediately thinks "If everyone knows I'm not supposed to use it, then that means I should use it! BRILLIANT!" I�m sure there is a study where the size of the ego is proportional to the likelihood of the person coming to that �special� conclusion.
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sehlat (profile), 8 Feb 2012 @ 11:09am

My bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha detector just exploded.
Damn! Now I need to get a replacement!
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Mr. Oizo, 8 Feb 2012 @ 11:16am

Grunt. Hmm, next time I'll be smarter
54321
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Feb 2012 @ 11:19am

aaaaah!
why didnt anyone tell me my ass was so big?
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Feb 2012 @ 11:21am

You miss the point Mike, now Syria's president can use the hacking as an excuse to clamp down the Internet and his people's freedoms on the Internet even more!

The hackers fell for Syria's trap!
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Feb 2012 @ 11:25am

Re:
Somehow I don't think he needs any excuses.
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Feb 2012 @ 11:34am

If he is butchering his own people why would he need an excuse to destroy their freedom?
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Endtimer (profile), 8 Feb 2012 @ 11:50am

$5 says the next time he gets hacked it'll be password1
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Feb 2012 @ 12:00pm

Re:
Your on

my $5 is on 123456

also what currency are we using? American Dollars or Syrian Dollars?
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Feb 2012 @ 12:32pm

He must have read the Sarah Palin Book on Secure passwords
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Berenerd (profile), 8 Feb 2012 @ 12:51pm

So what you are saying is...
I should change my secret password for my bank account...got it...

13245

Oops...wrong window...
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Feb 2012 @ 1:03pm

In that case it wasn't really hacking... :P
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Feb 2012 @ 1:17pm

So what was in them?? Where's the text?
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monkyyy, 8 Feb 2012 @ 1:26pm

Re: Re:
nah he will be more sneaky "1234"
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Feb 2012 @ 1:26pm

next 1 "54321"
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Jay Fude (profile), 8 Feb 2012 @ 2:01pm

Damn
Now I need to change the password on my luggage.
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LOLOLOL, 8 Feb 2012 @ 2:06pm

Surely sir you mean "hunter2"
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Feb 2012 @ 2:08pm

Re:
Probably on pastebin
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Feb 2012 @ 2:08pm

Re:
Probably on pastebin
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TtfnJohn (profile), 8 Feb 2012 @ 2:33pm

OK, so if I can't use 1-2-3-4-5 can I use 5-4-3-2-1????

You know that someone out there will be thinking that. Perhaps not readers of this blog but someone will.

I've had customers tell me their password is their address number, their dog's name, the same numbers they use on their debit and credit card accounts, their birthdays and their favourite of luckiest number. (No joke of a lie here one Chinese fella, new arrival, told me his password was 88888.)

No matter how many times we tell people to use secure passwords they don't.

I daresay most of us are guilty of it too.
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anonymous, 8 Feb 2012 @ 2:38pm

.
His new password is "password"
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Common Sense, 8 Feb 2012 @ 2:46pm

Way to miss the obvious.
"dumped a ton of emails online."

WHERE? LINK?

How do you even conceive of posting this story without the link?
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Prashanth (profile), 8 Feb 2012 @ 2:46pm

All bets
All bets are on for guessing the password of Dark Helmet (TechDirt commenter and writer)! I'm going to guess "qwerty" :P.
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iamneopunk, 8 Feb 2012 @ 2:56pm

The source doesn't say his password was 12345
Quote from the source:
"Seventy eight inboxes of Assad staffers were compromised, according to the newspaper, including several that used the password "12345," one of the most-common but obviously least secure passwords possible."

Nowhere's written that HIS password was 12345.
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Lawrence D'Oliveiro, 8 Feb 2012 @ 3:07pm

Have Some Passwords ...
... courtesy of a generator of semi-pronounceable nonsense words I wrote a while back:

moonaixiad
leouoa
hoyt
hoespuyvbiou
iuwheou
iurdpuyaekh
ruyrachquao
aetuouaeiiad
ga esoyhpoa
choe
sawchjuyn
ghreylth

(your comment-submission system is very slow today)
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Feb 2012 @ 3:12pm

Re: Why is it...
People who don't know the difference between "your" and "you're" shouldn't be judging the basic skills of others...
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Feb 2012 @ 3:25pm

Re: Re: Why is it...
he has it right...
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Feb 2012 @ 3:29pm

I can just imagine the security briefing for this.

"What's your password going to be? We need to protect national seecrets."

"1, 2, 3, 4, 5."

"...But sir, that's--"

"ONE. TWO. THREE. FOUR. FIVE."

"...." *Exasperated sigh*
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John Fenderson (profile), 8 Feb 2012 @ 3:39pm

Re: All bets
No, he's a creative thinker. It's probably "asdfg"
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Feb 2012 @ 3:44pm

ALL OF YOU FUCKING SUCKS AT MAKING COMMENTS, YOU ASSBAGS
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Feb 2012 @ 3:59pm

Re: Re: Re:
nah, you have to have to have a password of at least 5 characters in syria.

In Mother Russia, at least 5 characters must have you for password.
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Feb 2012 @ 4:31pm

If I had to guess, its actually one of his secretaries who had the password. I doubt very much the president personally opens outlook and types '12345' every morning.
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President Scroo, 8 Feb 2012 @ 5:10pm

THAT'S AMAZING!!
That's the same combination I have on my luggage!
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Feb 2012 @ 5:20pm

He's learned his lesson. Next time he'll make his password 123456.
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Anonymous Coward, 8 Feb 2012 @ 6:07pm

Re:
Sorry, that came across as "*******", what did you actually mean to type?
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Chargone (profile), 8 Feb 2012 @ 6:19pm

Re: Re: Re: Why is it...
he uses 'your', ownership, for 'you're', contraction so... no. no he doesn't.
not on the grammar thing anyway.

his actual Point though, yes. quite correct, and 'snowflake with arrows' AC up there is being quite silly and obnoxious in linking this grammatical error to an inability to see and point out actual Stupidity.
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Chargone (profile), 8 Feb 2012 @ 6:20pm

Re: Re:
still a valid bit of 'stupid-logic' though.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Feb 2012 @ 6:34am

Re:
Because anyone who thinks that's a good password would have a hard time counting that high?
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Feb 2012 @ 7:30am

Re: Re: Re: Re: Why is it...
As a grammar Nazi myself, I think AC was right on target.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Feb 2012 @ 9:26am

Maybe he was a huge Mel Brooks fan.
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Bob, 9 Feb 2012 @ 2:22pm

Kya bhasad hai
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Just John (profile), 10 Feb 2012 @ 1:04am

Re: Grunt. Hmm, next time I'll be smarter
I personally like to use password, then when it has that password: I can easily remember it.
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Just John (profile), 10 Feb 2012 @ 1:15am

password of power
So, next we should change our password to:
1234567890qwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnm

Why is it though I always get the message "This password is to long"....

Honestly, the best way is to find 4 words 4+ letters in length, random with no direct subject links.

I remember reviewing the stats, and a brute force attack on a basic 16 character password like this would take 56 years (approximately) to go through every combination. The whole upper case, lower case, number, special symbol is actually less secure at a length of 8 characters than a 16 character password of only lower case words.

My home network password is 22 (6 words) characters long and my wifi access is 16 (4 words) characters long, and no matter how many brute force attacks I have had on my server (I once had a single IP address try for 2 days straight, resulting in 19 pages of logs before I noticed and permablocked the IP address), I have never had a breach.
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Dave Kaufman - Techlife (profile), 21 Jun 2012 @ 1:28pm

Used this example...
Just used the 12345 example in my syndicated column Techlife - How to Hide Your Password In Plain Sight - http://bit.ly/MlR3It

Care to weigh in on if it's strong enough?
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shimomura, 5 Jul 2012 @ 4:11pm

email password
My team & I offer hacking services.We can hack/recover? any email id,FACEBOOK & website servers & grant our clients access..We always? provide proof before payment so you know you are not being ripped off.Send me a mail "shimomurat@yahoo.com".We try to reply every client ASAP & execute the project in the quickest time-frame possible
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METE, 5 Mar 2013 @ 2:34am

5
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Anonymous Coward, 31 Dec 2016 @ 11:51pm

hgtfctfuygygbujuiioijrftdsesrddstyttytyyt54r5rftyjg
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