The Worst Passwords in 2012
0Despite the many security issues that arise with having a weak password, many Internet users continue to choose simple, one-word passwords to protect some of their most important data.
In a year that was full of high-profile website hacks and password leaks, including a half million login credentials leaked from Yahoo and another 8 million from LinkedIn, eHarmony and Last.FM combined, password security remains an issue.
SplashData released their list of the most common passwords used by Internet users. This information was gathered via the numerous hacks that led to many people having their passwords leaked onto the Internet.
SplashData CEO Morgan Slain hopes that releasing this information will force people to take choosing passwords more seriously:
“We’re hoping that with more publicity about how risky it is to use weak passwords, more people will start taking simple steps to protect themselves by using stronger passwords and using different passwords for different Web sites,”
“Just a little bit more effort in choosing better passwords will go a long way toward making you safer online.”
Here’s SplashData’s finding, including changes in ranking from last year’s list:
- password (unchanged)
- 123456 (unchanged)
- 12345678 (unchanged)
- abc123 (up 1)
- qwerty (down 1)
- monkey (unchanged)
- letmein (up 1)
- dragon (up 2)
- 111111 (up 3)
- baseball (up 1)
- iloveyou (up 2)
- trustno1 (down 3)
- 1234567 (down 6)
- sunshine (up 1)
- master (down 1)
- 123123 (up 4)
- welcome (new)
- shadow (up 1)
- ashley (down 3)
- football (up 5)
- Jesus (new)
- michael (up 2)
- ninja (new)
- mustang (new)
- password1 (new)
Experts suggest using long passwords that include as many different characters as possible while excluding anything that can be linked to you personally, such as names or birth dates.
