Huawei is set to be granted a limited role in building the UK's 5G infrastructure, government sources have revealed.

The Chinese giant will be barred from accessing the UK's core network, which hosts much of the data, as well as being blocked from government systems.

However even this may not be enough to appease the US, which has long accused Huawei of attempting to spy on Western powers using its technology.

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Ongoing

Reuters has published claims from two sources that say the recommendation was made at a meeting of officials from senior government departments.

The sources added that the recommendations come days before the National Security Council is set to meet in order to decide how to deploy Huawei equipment.

“The technical and policy guidance hasn’t changed,” one source told Reuters. “Now it is down to a political calculation.”

The decision is similar to that made last year by former Prime Minister Theresa May, with a spokesman for current prime minister Boris Johnson saying, “The work on the issue of high risk vendors in the 5G network remains ongoing and when it is completed it will be announced to parliament.”

Huawei has yet to comment on the news, but the company has repeatedly been force to deny allegations that its infrastructure could be used for illegal spying and surveillance. 

The news comes hours after Business minister Andrea Leadsom confirmed that government discussions with Huawei had come to a head, with one of the main sticking points being a lack of viable alternatives to Huawei's expertise.

The UK is set to make a final public decision on whether to allow Huawei to build its 5G infrastructure by the end of the month.

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Via Reuters

Microsoft has cast a look into the future of education as it looks to prepare the classrooms of tomorrow with the technology they need to thrive.

The computing giant has revealed new research at BETT 2020 today that examines just what the teachers of 2030 will require in terms of technological needs.

With millennials and Generation Z set to make up a significant proportion of the teaching workforce by 2030, the needs of students and teachers alike are set to change, and Microsoft wants to be in pole position.

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Advanced

Microsoft’s study surveyed over a thousand new and early-career teachers around the world in an attempt to work out their needs, but also looked to drill into just what technology can do for the educators of tomorrow.

The company found that technology is set to play an increasingly vital role in the classroom of the future, both in terms of enabling learning but also enriching the student and teacher experiences.

The study found that the largest benefits of education technology were seen as allowing more engaging learning experiences (chosen by 36 percent of the participants), enabling self-directed learning (31 percent) and preparing students for the tech-centric job market (30 percent).

However there were also some concerns surrounding the use of technology in the classroom, with 36 percent of respondents saying they feared it could lead to a loss of traditional skills and knowledge, such as handwriting. 34 percent were worried that students already spent too much time on devices already, and 28 percent said that the technology could be too distracting.

A lack of proper tools was named as the top barrier to achieving positive education outcomes through technology, with inadequate training for teachers on the technology they would be using, and inadequate technical support also ranking highly.

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Switching your office printer could be the key not just to saving money, but also saving the planet, a report has claimed.

New research from Epson has claimed that changing to a more up to date printer alternative could have huge benefits both in terms of your workplace efficiency and in the impact on the planet.

The comopany found that moving from laser printing to inkjet technology could save European businesses over a billion Kwh in energy consumption, cut costs by €134 million and reduce CO2 emissions by 409 million KGs each year.

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Efficient

Epson says that 2020 could be a "pivotal year" when it comes to businesses ensuring they are up to date with the latest environmental regulations, and its inkjet technology could play a huge role in that. 

Its report found that the annual total CO2 savings that could be achieved if all European businesses switched to Epson business inkjet technology is equivalent to that absorbed by 18 million trees in a year.

This is without taking into consideration how many trees could actually be saved from be turned into printer paper thanks to more efficient printing process - with that amount of energy saved being enough to power around 1.2 million electric cars for a year.

However Epson also found that many businesses are unable to upgrade to more efficient technology due to budgetary restrictions. This is despite the need to invest in new technology being ranked as the highest priority pressures being placed on IT managers by their corporate bosses.

“Making a small change to an often-overlooked piece of equipment could have substantial ecological and economic results, advantages enabled by our heat-free printing technology," Darren Phelps, VP of business at Epson Europe, said.

“A simple switch in technology can have significant human benefits. In corporations, resulting savings generated from our innovations are being used to enhance employee and customer experiences, help drive sales and enable new, smarter ways of working.”

• If you are looking to buy a new office printer - check out our list of the best printers 2020: inkjet, color, mono and laser printers

Smart device shipments are set to continue their encouraging growth into 2020 as consumers look to upgrade to the latest devices.

New figures from Gartner have forecast that sales of devices including PCs, tablets and smartphones are set for a 0.9 percent growth rate in 2019 as the need to have the latest and greatest gadgets continues across the world.

Gartner estimates that 2.16 billion products will be shipped in 2020, up from the 2.15 billion recorded this year.

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Recovery

The growth will largely be inspired by mobile phone sales, which Gartner estimates are set to grow by 1.7 percent this year following a disappointing 2019. 

The increasing availability of 5G-enabled smartphones is set to inspire a worldwide sales boost, as consumers flock to upgrade their devices and enjoy the new high-speed networks.

Gartner says it expects 5G models to account for 12 percent of mobile phone shipments in 2020, with that figure set to reach 43 percent by 2022.

PC sales are also set to remain strong as consumer and businesses alike migrate away from Windows 7, which saw its official end of life this month, to newer, Windows 10 devices. The company estimates that one billion PCs will have migrated to Windows 10 through 2020 — around 80 percent of all PCs in use. 

“2020 will witness a slight market recovery,” said Ranjit Atwal, research senior director at Gartner. “The market totalled 2.15 billion units, its lowest shipment level since 2010. 2020, however, will see a slight recovery. Increased availability of 5G handsets will boost mobile phone replacements, which will lead global device shipments to return to growth in 2020."

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Huawei has revealed it shipped 6.9 million 5G phones in 2019 as sales of next-generation connected devices was higher than expected.

The company said the sales reflected its "relentless commitment" to the development of 5G technology, which it says is available to more customers than any other vendor.

Huawei released eight 5G smartphones last year - Huawei Mate 30 Pro 5G, Huawei Mate 30 5G, Porsche Design Huawei Mate 30 RS, Huawei Mate 20 X 5G, Huawei nova 6 5G and Huawei Mate X, as well as the Honor V30 Pro and Honor V30 from its sister brand.

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5G phone sales

Huawei has invested billions in its 5G research in the past few years as it looks to establish itself as one of the world leaders in connectivity, with its network infrastructure products such as base stations and routers making up key parts of many existing 5G networks across the world.

This is despite the company still being engaged in a long-running dispute with the US over concerns its technology could be used for illegal surveillance - a claim Huawei has long denied.

Huawei is the world's largest maker of mobile networking equipment and the Chinese firm has repeatedly denied that its equipment could be used for spying, with industry warnings suggesting that banning the Chinese telecom giant outright would cost billions of dollars.

The news comes shortly after Samsung claimed it had also enjoyed stronger 5G device sales than expected, with the South Korean giant stating it sold 6.7 million 5G phones in 2019

The company claimed that this figure made up over half (53.9 percent) of the global 5G marketplace, although this may now be called into question given Huawei's supposed higher sales number.

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Huawei has made its pitch to developers to port across the company’s new proprietary app store.

The Chinese mobile giant unveiled more details about its new Huawei Mobile Services (HMS) system at an event in London, where it revealed strong initial growth in the number of developers already signed up.

But it also showed off the advantages it feels HMS has over Google’s Android Play Store, with a new approach that looks to connect a wide range of the company’s services and devices.

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Huawei unveiled HMS 4.0, the latest edition of the platform, back in December as it continues to plan its rebound from being blocked from using Android services following a ruling by the US government last May.

The company says it has already signed up 55,000 apps using HMS Core, which is free to register for and use, with the 24 developer kits enabling nearly a thousand APIs to use.

These kits cover a range of functions including location-tracking, health and even a specific machine learning kit, which was shown off to highlight hyper-advanced facial detection services and in-depth text recognition and image-labelling tools.

Huawei says its AppGallery currently attracts 400 million MAU (monthly active users), and the company is looking to build more links to its other mobile services to encourage connectivity. The likes of the Huawei Browser (270 million MAU) and Assistant (180 million MAU) were named as being among the apps being connected, with more to come in the future.

Huawei says it offers an attractive proposition for app developers for several reasons, chief being the fact that it designs and builds the entire development ecosystem, with HMS Core combining with Huawei cloud and the company’s mobile devices to provide, “a fully-connected ecosystem”.

The company also presented a new strategy for its consumer devices business over the next few years as it looks to offer a “seamless AI experience”. This new “1+8+N” approach keeps the smartphone (1) at the centre, with related Huawei smart devices such as wearables, tablets and PCs (8) bridging to the wider world of connected products such as televisions, appliances and even cars (N).

Huawei says it is also investing £20 million in the UK and Ireland development industry, with developers able to claim up to £20,000 for any apps uploaded to the Huawei Gallery by the end of January.

The Chinese firm insists the accelerated development of the HMS platform is motivated by strategic rather than geopolitical considerations.

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Today marks the official end of Microsoft support for Windows 7, marking the end of one of the company's most widely-used software suites.

First released in 2009, Windows 7 marked a crucial step for Microsoft as it looked to recover from the awfulness of Windows Vista, and saw major steps forward in terms of power and usability to become still the fastest-selling OS of all time.

But with millions of PCs still estimated to be running the now-elderly OS, what do you need to know about updating your business from Windows 7?

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When does Windows 7 support end for businesses?

Windows 7 End of Life starts on January 14, 2020 for both business and consumer users. However Microsoft actually ended mainstream support for Windows 7 on January 13, 2015, after which new features stopped being added, and warranty claims were no longer valid.

Since then, Windows 7 has been in an "extended support phase", where Microsoft has still been providing patches and updates to make sure security issues and bugs are fixed.

But this is now ending, with Microsoft encouraging users to upgrade as soon as possible. 

What can my business do next after Windows 7 End of Life? 

Despite Microsoft's official support ending, this doesn’t mean Windows 7 will stop working after January 14 2020 – as you’ll still be able to use Windows 7 for as long as you want. 

But it does bring in a number of new issues, mainly that Windows 7 won't be patched to protect from any new viruses or security threats going forward, meaning your business could be left vulnerable to any new or emerging issues.

And as we've noted previously, if a large number of people continue to use Windows 7 after the End of Life date, that could actually prove to be a big incentive for malicious users to target viruses at Windows 7.

So, while Windows 7 will continue to work after January 14 2020, your workplace should start planning to upgrade to Windows 10, or an alternative operating system, as soon as possible.

Steps for your business to take after Windows 7 End of Life

With this in mind, if your business is still using Windows 7, probably the best option to consider is to upgrade to a newer operating system.

There are a number of options on the market today, both in terms of newer versions of Windows, or other providers, but if you want to keep it simple, the best thing is to upgrade to Windows 10.

This is the best option for a number of reasons - primarily in that both operating systems are made by Microsoft, so the upgrade process is relatively easy, especially if you are updating a large number of office or workplace devices in bulk.

Staying with Windows also means there should be less disruption for your employees, with most popular Windows 7 programs have been  updated to work on Windows 10. The two operating systems also have several similarities when it comes to layout and interface, and in many cases you can keep your files on your PC.

However you need to remember that until you are upgraded to the new version, your devices will be vulnerable to threats looking to exploit any unsupported security flaws lurking in Windows 7.

Upgrading your business to Windows 10

If you want to upgrade to Windows 10, then you'll need to contact Microsoft, who can examine your current subscription level and then take the process further. 

That can either be with Microsoft itself, or one of its certified partners - so if you're looking to go it alone, it might be worth getting several quotes for the process.

It's worth considering that as your software improves, your hardware will need to do so too, as Windows 10 may struggle to work well on your old Windows 7 machine. 

Here are the recommended specs Microsoft suggests for Windows 10:

• Processor: 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster processor or SoC
• RAM: 1 gigabyte (GB) for 32-bit or 2 GB for 64-bit
• Hard disk space: 16 GB for 32-bit OS 20 GB for 64-bit OS
• Graphics card: DirectX 9 or later with WDDM 1.0 driver
• Display: 800 x 600 resolution

For more on upgrading your Windows 7 machine to Windows 10, check out our comprehensive article on How to use Windows 10.

Upgrading your entire device fleet is another option, and although it will be pricey, having a new top-of-the-range model to allow your employees to get the most out of Windows 10 carries many benefits.

If your business does choose this route, be sure to back up all your files before making the switch, and ensure you have all software updates and security patches installed on the new devices. 

• Check out our pick of the best laptops for business in 2020

Should I upgrade my business to Windows 8?

Despite the name (and numerical upgrade), we're not recommending that businesses upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 8 . 

Although Windows 8 is more recent than Windows 7, and still enjoys full Microsoft support, it may not be too long before that version too enters its End of Life stage.

Even though it may save money, we say your business will be much better off postponing this future stress by upgrading to the much better Windows 10.

• Read more about the benefits of Windows 10 in our full review 

Windows 7 End of Life: sticking with Windows 7

For those who are really unwilling to let go of Windows 7, there is always a more extreme option - but it may cost you.

Microsoft has confirmed it will be offering Windows 7 Extended Security Updates, which will continue to deliver updates and patches for Windows 7 business users after January 2020.

However, these extended security updates will cost money on a per device basis, and it's not cheap.

For support for Windows Enterprise users using Windows 7 for the first year after the End of Life date (January 2020 – January 2021), the cost is $25 (around £20, AU$35) for each device.

This rises to $50 per device (around £40, AU$70) for year two (January 2021 – January 2022), and $100 (around £80, AU$140) for year three (January 2022 to January 2023). It appears that at the moment that Microsoft is hoping by 2023, Windows 7 use will be small enough to stop offering the extended security updates.

As this is a per device cost, businesses with numerous PCs running Windows 7 will soon find this very expensive.

If they are using Windows 7 Pro, then those prices are even higher, with $50 (around £40, AU$70) for year one support, $100 (around £80, AU$140) for year two and $200 (around £150, AU$280) for year three.

Windows 7 End of Life: switch to Mac

If your business is ready to move on from Microsoft's software, then Windows 7 End of Life could be the ideal opportunity to switch to Mac.

Today, many common business programs for Windows are also available for Mac, including G Suite and Office 365, although you may need to purchase new licences, or such for an alternative if not available. 

Macs also offer a thorough security suite to help protect from cyberattacks, although the old myths that Apple devices don't get viruses is sadly not true.

The downside of moving to Apple is that it's the most expensive option. Apple’s products are notoriously expensive, so expect to pay a lot if you make the switch. 

Apple currently offers MacBooks for business starting at $1,099/£1,099, and iMacs starting from $1,049/£1,049.

However, Mac computers tend to age better than Windows PCs, so while you may spend a lot now, your new Mac should last you a long time.

Amazon has warned users to exercise caution when using a popular online shopping browser extension.

Honey, which helps consumers search for coupons that get them deals or money off when shopping online, has been flagged by the retail giant as a security threat following fears it may be tracking user browsing habits.

The tool is available as a free browser extension across Chrome, Firefox, Safari and other popular browsers, and counts millions of users across the world.

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Tracking

Amazon's warning, which was first spotted by Politico editor Ryan Hutchins, says that Honey "tracks your private shopping behavior, collects data...and can read or change any of your data on any website you visit." It goes on to advise users that, "to keep your data private and secure, uninstall this extension immediately."

The warning allegedly began appearing on Amazon's site on December 20th, in the peak of the holiday shopping season, leading many commentators to question the sudden change in Amazon's tone, given that Honey has been compatible with Amazon for years. 

Some have suggested the move is linked to the $4 billion takeover deal of Honey by PayPal back in November 2019, with Amazon feeling threatened by its competitor's big-name acquisition.

“Our goal is to warn customers about browser extensions that collect personal shopping data without their knowledge or consent,” an Amazon spokesperson told The Verge.

“We only use data in ways that directly benefit Honey members — helping people save money and time — and in ways they would expect,” a Honey spokesperson told Wired, adding it had a "commitment" to privacy, and that it works with security firms to ensure it doesn't cross any lines.

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Via The Verge

The City of Las Vegas has revealed it was targeted with a serious cyberattack during CES 2020.

City officials confirmed that its systems were attacked early on Tuesday morning, forcing the local government to take down a number of onlineservices, including its public website.

However the attack, which took place around 4.30am, was quickly spotted by IT staff, who were able to prevent the affected systems from being seriously breached.

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Devastating

City officials are yet to disclose exact details concerning the incident, which came as the world's media descended upon Las Vegas for CES 2020. However one report claimed an email delivery vector was targeted. This could mean the city was targeted with ransomware or phishing attacks, both of which are designed to target email systems.

In a statement posted on Twitter, the City of Las Vegas said that it did not believe any data was stolen from its systems, and that no personal data was compromised.

"Thanks to our software security systems and fast action by our IT staff, we were fortunate to avoid what had the potential to be a devastating situation," the statement added, noting that all data systems were back functioning as normal.

There appears to be no leads as to who was behind the attack, with officials and IT experts examining the case for any indicators.

This is not the first time that a major US city has been targeted in such an attack, with Baltimore targeted last May last year, leaving citizens unable to do certain tasks such as paying utility bills, parking tickets and taxes. Then in mid December, the City of New Orleans was forced to shut down much of its computing network following an attack.

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Via ZDNet

Small and medium businesses may be able to develop IoT platforms at a lower cost than ever thanks to a new release from Arduino.

The open-source hardware maker has take the wraps off a new afforable platfrom that it says can be the breakthrough to get more companies than ever onto the IoT.

The Arduino Portenta H7 packs in everything a start-up or SMB should need to build an IoT-enabled platform and apps.

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Development

The Portenta H7 is powered by a dual-core set-up that pairs ARM's 32-bit Cortex-M7 and M4 chips, and features connectivity modules for Wi-Fi, LTE and Bluetooth Low Energy, as well as Narrowband IoT, USB-C and an SD card connector.

This means it consumer very little power, allowing for the design and building of industrial apps that need to run for long periods of time, with power supplied by a 700mAh single-cell battery. The device is able to operate in temperatures ranging from -10 °C to +55 °C, with the non-wireless model able to take this to -40 °C to +85 °C

On the software side, the Portenta H7 will support Ardunio code and run Arm’s Mbed OS, but also feature support for Python and JavaScript applications, including the likes of TensorFlow Lite.

“SMBs with industrial requirements require simplified development through secure development tools, software and hardware to economically realize their IoT use cases,” said Charlene Marini, the VP of strategy for Arm’s IoT Services Group. 

"The combination of Mbed OS with Cortex-M IP in the new Arduino Portenta Family will enable Arduino’s millions of developers to securely and easily develop and deploy IoT devices from prototypes through to production.”

The Portenta H7 is available now for beta testers, with general availability scheduled for February 2020.

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Via TechCrunch

The upcoming new version of Google Chrome is aiming to kill off annoying notification alerts for good.

Google has revealed that Chrome 80 will block such popups by default, meaning you can continue in peace without annoying alerts whenever you visit a new site.

Chrome 80 is scheduled for release on February 4.

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Blocked

Google's blog post announcing the release of Chrome 80 notes that the update includes a "quieter notification permission UI that reduces the interruptiveness of notification permission requests."

The post adds that notifications are "a common complaint" for many users, as many websites display notification permissions on a user's first visit rather than at contextually relevant moments, making the browsing experience disjointed.

The new feature will hide notification requests for Chrome users who typically dismiss such prompts, but also automatically blocking prompts on sites with very low opt-in rates.

The news will not be a surprise to users of Mozilla Firefox, which muted popups in Firefox 72, released earlier this week. 

Although popups don't appear on newer versions of Firefox, notificiations do still work - instead they are hidden under an icon in the URL bar, rather than being shown on whatever page the user is visiting.

Chrome 80 will take a similar approach, hiding notification alerts in the URL bar. A new option will be added in the Chrome settings menu that allows users to enable what Google calls the new "quieter notification UI."

This setting can be enabled by users as soon as they download Chrome 80, or Google will enable it by default over the coming weeks as the new update rolls out worldwide.

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An outage that affected the London Stock Exchange last year may have been caused by a cyberattack, reports have claimed.

The Wall Street Journal has claimed that last year's downtime could be down to something far more serious than initially thought, with the possibilty that criminal forces looked to affect financial transactions occuring on the LSE.

The UK's GCHQ intelligence agency has now been called in to investigate the outage, which took the exchange offline for around an hour and a half on August 16th, with the UK Treasury also involved.

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Suspicion

The WSJ, which quotes several people familiar with the incident, says that the outage was initially blamed on a software update gone wrong. The LSE systems were apparently in the process of a software update when the incident happened, which reportedly left the platform open to attack.

The LSE outsources software development and updates to a third-party company, which may also have been another possible security vulnerability. GCHQ is now looking at the code associated with the incident to ascertain the possible causes of the outage, and whether suspicious activity can be detected.

The outage meant that securities on markets including the FTSE 100 and FTSE 250 could not be traded for some time, raisng the possibility of financial irregularities or criminal activity.

A spokesperson for the LSE told the WSJ that the outage was due to a "technical software configuration issue following an upgrade of functionality" that occured following an upgrade, and that the exchange had "thoroughly investigated the root cause of the issue to mitigate against any future incidents”.

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Via Wall Street Journal

Ahead of CES 2020 next week, Dell has taken the wraps off its latest business flagship PC, the Latitude 9510.

The company says that the Dell Latitude 9510 is "the world's smallest and lightest commercial 15-inch PC", but that it also packs some serious computing power and built-in AI capabilities.

At just 1.45kg and 17mm thick, the Latitude 9510 is able to slip into a small bag, making it perfect for carrying around and working on the go, reportedly packing all-day battery life and 5G connectivity.

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Get smart

Available in both 360-degree "convertible" and "Laptop" designs, the Latitude 9510 sports a 15.0-inch InfinityEdge display for the former, and 15.6-inch FullHD display on the latter.

Inside, there's up to the latest 10th Gen Intel Core i7 processors, with the option of up to 16GB LPDDR3 SDRAM and up to 1TB oF SSD storage. For connectivity, there's a choice of Intel Wi-Fi 6 or 5G connectivity from Qualcomm's Snapdragon X20 LTE-A modem for US customers - although the Snapdragon X55 global 5G modem will also be an option from July 2020.

Dell also says that the Latitude 9510 will sport a better battery life than any other 15-inch business PC on the market today, with up to 30 hours total usage. The device is able to charge up 35 percent of its battery life after being plugged in for just 15 minutes, and its ExpressCharge tool can get you up to 80 percent charge in around an hour.

That's thanks to some clever AI tricks Dell has built in to the Latitude 9510, largely in its Dell Optimizer software, which learns how the user works and continuously adapts to your style to create a smarter and more personalised experience.

As for other software, there's the option of Windows 10 Pro or Home editions, or Ubuntu for those looking for a bit more flexibility. Lastly, there's also Bluetooth 5.0, along with a single USB 3.1 connector, two Thunderbolt 3 ports, HDMI 2.0 and an ultraSD 4.0 memory card reader.

The Latitude 9510 will be available globally in March 2020. UK availability and pricing to be confirmed.

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Samsung has revealed that sales of its 5G phones were much better than the company expected.

The mobile giant says it sold 6.7 million 5G phones in 2019, with the Galaxy S10 5G and the Galaxy Note 10 Plus 5G attracting customers across the world.

Overall, the company says that sales of its five Galaxy 5G devices represented over half (53.9 percent) of the global 5G marketplace, showing the appetite for next-generation devices is here.

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Samsung 5G

Samsung had previously said it only expected to sell four million 5G devices in 2019, and now the company says it has further 5G launches planned in 2020, which it says will, "be the year of Galaxy 5G".

This most likely includes the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S11 and Note 11 devices, which may be available as 5G standalone devices for the first time, as opposed to the company releasing two seperate models.

Samsung is also gearing up to launch the Galaxy Tab S6 5G, which it says will be the world’s first 5G tablet, in South Korea in the first quarter of 2020.

“Consumers can’t wait to experience 5G and we are proud to offer a diverse portfolio of devices that deliver the best 5G experience possible,” TM Roh, President and Head of Research and Development at IT & Mobile Communications Division, Samsung Electronics, said in a blog post.

“For Samsung, 2020 will be the year of Galaxy 5G and we are excited to bring 5G to even more device categories and introduce people to mobile experiences they never thought possible.”

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SplashData has released its annual list of the most commonly-used passwords across the world, uncovering that old security habits really do die hard.

The security firm investigated over five million leaked passwords over the past twelve months, and found that many of the most common logins would be easy to guess for even the most incompetent hackers.

In perhaps the most surprising news, "password" has for the first time been knocked out of the top two spots, being replaced by the painfully simple "123456" and "123456789".

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Complex

SplashData estimates almost 10 percent of people have used at least one of the 25 worst passwords on this year’s list, with nearly three percent using "123456".

The company noted that while many computer programs now prevent such simple passwords from being created in the first place, older applications and some websites lack this ability, allowing for some dangerously weak passwords. 

Among this year's new entries were “1q2w3e4r” and “qwertyuiop” - simple patterns using contiguous keys on the keyboard - however SplashData says that using such letter/number combinations will still be easy to crack.

“Our hope by publishing this list each year is to convince people to take steps to protect themselves online, and we think these and other efforts are finally starting to pay off,” says Morgan Slain, CEO of SplashData.

“We can tell that over the years people have begun moving toward more complex passwords, though they are still not going far enough as hackers can figure out simple alphanumeric patterns.”

Here are the so-called "worst passwords of 2019"

1. 123456
2. 123456789
3. qwerty
4. password
5. 1234567
6. 12345678
7. 12345
8. iloveyou
9. 111111
10.  123123

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