These are the world's worst passwords, and this is your yearly reminder to choose better ones
No matter how careful you are these days, major cybersecurity breaches still happen way too often even for the world’s largest tech companies, regularly putting your most personal data and critical financial information at risk of being compromised.
At the same time, some people never learn, painting a big target on their backs that the least competent hackers could hit with their eyes closed. Although year-end lists of the world’s most popular passwords have been a thing since the beginning of the internet, the same weak digit combinations are still everybody's go-to method of “hacking protection.”
This popularity contest, mind you, is not one you actually want to win, so if you use “123456” to “secure” anything of value on your phone or computer, congratulations, you’ve probably been hacked.
What’s truly mind-boggling is that, according to password management applications provider SplashData, 2018 was the fifth, yes, fifth consecutive year with “123456” and “password” in the top two spots on the list of the world’s worst 100 passwords.
“Password”, people? Really? That’s even easier to guess than 123456. It also doesn’t take a rocket scientist to crack basic numerical strings like “123456789”, “12345678”, “12345”, “111111”, and “1234567.”
Two of those have actually boosted their popularity compared to the 2017 report, while the six ones are an entirely new entry in this shameful chart. The same goes for “sunshine” and “princess”, which are ranked eight and eleventh, although oddly enough, “cupcake” and “pumpkin” didn’t make the list. “Football” and “monkey” however did, along with “donald”, which President Trump is likely to tweet about in 3, 2, 1...
In case you’re wondering where SplashData gets its information from, it seems this year’s analysis derived from a database of more than 5 million passwords leaked on the internet. This is a serious threat, guys, and it’s imperative to start treating the matter seriously.
Forget passwords that are easy to remember. That’s what services like LastPass are for. Choose something random, lengthy, and impersonal, then go one step further with two-factor authentication. You can never be too safe!
At the same time, some people never learn, painting a big target on their backs that the least competent hackers could hit with their eyes closed. Although year-end lists of the world’s most popular passwords have been a thing since the beginning of the internet, the same weak digit combinations are still everybody's go-to method of “hacking protection.”
What’s truly mind-boggling is that, according to password management applications provider SplashData, 2018 was the fifth, yes, fifth consecutive year with “123456” and “password” in the top two spots on the list of the world’s worst 100 passwords.
Two of those have actually boosted their popularity compared to the 2017 report, while the six ones are an entirely new entry in this shameful chart. The same goes for “sunshine” and “princess”, which are ranked eight and eleventh, although oddly enough, “cupcake” and “pumpkin” didn’t make the list. “Football” and “monkey” however did, along with “donald”, which President Trump is likely to tweet about in 3, 2, 1...
Forget passwords that are easy to remember. That’s what services like LastPass are for. Choose something random, lengthy, and impersonal, then go one step further with two-factor authentication. You can never be too safe!
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