Bob and Maria most breached male, female names

If your name is Bob or Maria, double-check your email security. A new study has found that these are the top two most commonly breached male and female names.

Bob was the name with the highest rate of email breaches, averaging 180 breaches per email address containing the name, according to a study by Mailsuite, an email tracking service. Bob was closely followed by John, with 175.1 breaches, and Alex, with 144.

Maria, involved in an average of 115.3 breaches per email address, was the most breach-prone female name. However, it did not make it into the overall top 10 names covered by the study, indicating that female names were “less vulnerable,” according to researchers.

The study analyzed the most common first and last names in the United States, running a list of 18,000 email addresses containing those names through the email breach database Have I Been Pwned to calculate the average number of breaches.

Alice and Bob are fictional characters frequently used to describe and teach encryption theory, which may explain why the name Bob appears so often in email breaches. However, Alice is not among the top 20 most vulnerable female names.

The study also found that Ali is the last name most vulnerable to email breaches, averaging 115.1 breaches per address. It is followed by King, with 96.4, and Smith, with 94.4.

Meanwhile, addresses ending in @gmail.com appeared in an average of 80 breaches, followed by @yahoo.com (74.2), and @hotmail.com (67.7).

“This adds up since Gmail is the most used email provider. Microsoft has more users than Yahoo, but these are divided across Microsoft’s Hotmail and Outlook domains,” Mailsuite said, noting that “this is not to say that these companies have a lack of security.”

Security experts said creating multiple emails for different purposes and avoiding including your first name in the address could make it more difficult for bad actors to spoof emails purporting to come from your accounts.

“While it is good practice to include your real name in your professional email address, this makes it easier for hackers and legitimate data brokers to connect your online activity with your identity,” Mailsuite said.