The world's worst passwords 2015: which are the most dangerous?


Updated on 25 January 2016 | 2 Comments

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. 

[SPOTLIGHT]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.

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