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Most common PIN codes (2012)

datagenetics.com

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Re: Most common PIN codes (2012)

#71

Post by fsckboy »

eqvinox wrote: post #55
toast0 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of my credit unions gives out (randomized) five digit pins (although they say if you use an atm that only accepts four digit pins, the first four is enough). My other credit union only does four digits. I think remembering one 6-digit PIN would be fine, but in the US, it's common to have many banking relationships. If I needed a pin for every credit card, I'd have to write them on the cards or set them all the sa…

Not sure how this is handled in Switzerland, and I don't have good data on this, but I'd say a lot of people in Europe have at least a debit and a credit card with a PIN each. Also nothing says you can't use the same PIN for multiple cards; they're essentially the same security domain anyway ("a piece of plastic in your wallet") — most people don't have "more" and "less" trustworthy cards…

>Also nothing says you can't use the same PIN for multiple cards

he said he can't choose his PIN:

>One of my credit unions gives out (randomized) five digit pins

Re: Most common PIN codes (2012)

#72

Post by fsckboy »

g4zj wrote: post #50

Before reaching the bottom of the article, I was wondering about 19xx codes, given that I've heard many people using years, or month/day pairings for garage door codes and such. I was glad to see those plotted out. I was also initially surprised that not a single 19xx pin made the top 20, but I suppose it makes sense considering that there are 100 different combinations of this code.

I think most people who think of using a date would use MMDDYY or some equivalent format they're used to.

Re: Most common PIN codes (2012)

#73

Post by qingcharles »

I used be lead dev for a big streaming site with >2m users and, well, no judgment here please, but the passwords were plaintext in the database.

So me and another dev ran a SQL script to see what the most common were.

  #1 was trustno1
  #2 was password
  #3 was 1234
We had no password rules either, so IIRC you could have a 1-char password.

Re: Most common PIN codes (2012)

#76

Post by Brajeshwar »

esafak wrote: post #26

1234!? That's the stupidest combination I've ever heard in my life! That's the kind of thing an idiot would have on his luggage!

Trust me, for the luggage this is a brilliant combination. Or something like 0000. Unless I work for a 3-letter institute, I leave all luggage to their default or the usual. If someone steals a luggage, that PIN is least of the problem but everyone else in the household will if you forgot your super-smart PIN.

Edit: The joke hit me a tad late. ;-)

Re: Most common PIN codes (2012)

#77

Post by zamadatix »

skipkey wrote: post #66
nytesky wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’ll need to be sure that all the places your cards will go accept the 6 digit pin. Granted this was 20 years ago, but we were in Europe and couldn’t use my wife’s ATM card because she had a 6 digit PIN and all the ATMs were encountered only allowed 4 digits. Sounds like it may be the reverse with Europe going the 6 digit route, but I think 4 digits is still pretty universal — I think most interfaces provide a ente…

The very first ATM card I ever got, in the mid 80s in Texas, had a 6 digit PIN. When I got to choose it, it let me put 4 to 6 digits so I chose 6. A few years later they sent me my first debit card with a note that it had the same PIN. It did not. It had been truncated to 4 digits. Which made me unhappy because clearly it was sitting in plaintext in a database somewhere.

Even with a 6 digit pin why care it was stored? If someone has access to the bank's infrastructure and the pins aren't there they might as well be even with computers from the 80s.

Re: Most common PIN codes (2012)

#79

Post by kalleboo »

skipkey wrote: post #66
nytesky wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’ll need to be sure that all the places your cards will go accept the 6 digit pin. Granted this was 20 years ago, but we were in Europe and couldn’t use my wife’s ATM card because she had a 6 digit PIN and all the ATMs were encountered only allowed 4 digits. Sounds like it may be the reverse with Europe going the 6 digit route, but I think 4 digits is still pretty universal — I think most interfaces provide a ente…

The very first ATM card I ever got, in the mid 80s in Texas, had a 6 digit PIN. When I got to choose it, it let me put 4 to 6 digits so I chose 6. A few years later they sent me my first debit card with a note that it had the same PIN. It did not. It had been truncated to 4 digits. Which made me unhappy because clearly it was sitting in plaintext in a database somewhere.

With how small the space of PINs are, is there any point in hashing? To make brute-forcing every PIN infeasible you'd have to make the hash difficulty time intolerably long.
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