The world's worst passwords 2015: which are the most dangerous?
This new list might make you reconsider your password.
The world’s worst passwords of 2015 have been revealed by security firm SplashData.
We’re still leaving ourselves open to risk from scammers by using weak passwords, and we're not changing our bad habits. In fact, some of the worst offenders have appeared on this list every year since SplashData started compiling it in 2011.
The list is made up using more than two million leaked passwords over the course of the year, mostly from North American and Western European users.
Here are the top 25 – is yours is on the list?
|
Rank |
Password |
Change from 2014 |
|
1 |
123456 |
Unchanged |
|
2 |
password |
Unchanged |
|
3 |
12345678 |
Up one place |
|
4 |
qwerty |
Up one place |
|
5 |
12345 |
Down two places |
|
6 |
123456789 |
Unchanged |
|
7 |
football |
Up three places |
|
8 |
1234 |
Down one place |
|
9 |
1234567 |
Up two places |
|
10 |
baseball |
Down two places |
|
11 |
welcome |
New |
|
12 |
1234567890 |
New |
|
13 |
abc123 |
Up one place |
|
14 |
111111 |
Up one place |
|
15 |
1qaz2wsx |
New |
|
16 |
dragon |
Down seven places |
|
17 |
master |
Up two places |
|
18 |
monkey |
Down six places |
|
19 |
letmein |
Down six places |
|
20 |
login |
New |
|
21 |
princess |
New |
|
22 |
qwertyuiop |
New |
|
23 |
solo |
New |
|
24 |
passw0rd |
New |
|
25 |
starwars |
New |
As you can see, ‘123456’ and ‘password’ are still the most commonly used, unchanged from 2014.
The fact that some passwords were longer doesn’t matter: many of them are based on patterns so are easy for scammers to guess. Sports are popular, but there’s been a surge in Star Wars-themed passwords, no doubt due to the release of The Force Awakens, with ‘princess’, ‘solo’ and ‘starwars’ appearing in 21st, 23rd and 25th place respectively.
How to create a safer password
SplashData offers some top tips to help you create a safer password.
- Use passwords containing 12 characters or more, with a combination of capital and small case letters as well as numbers and punctuation marks.
- Avoid using the same passwords on different websites.
- Use a password manager to organise and protect passwords, generate random passwords and automatically log into websites.
- Avoid modern pop culture and sports references as well as swear words.
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Comments
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Reminds me of Harriet Harman who used harriet as user ID and harman as the password for her web site. Of course it was hacked and someone posted a glowing report on Boris Johnson. And these people were running a country.
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Some systems will prevent you from defining an excessively simple password, and will insist on it containing, for example, at least one upper-case letter, one lower case, one digit, one non-alphanumeric character. My passwords are, in some cases, a pronounceable nonsense word, with an upper-case letter, and a digit and a punctuation mark (usually permitted in passwords). Sometimes, it's a person's name, split in two by inserting a 2-digit number. I have a password safe, called Keepass - this one is freeware - and it is encrypted with a long password that you need to invent and then remember, e.g. STUpidPASSwords (so don't use this one yourself!).
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26 January 2016