What type of password do you use? One that is easy to remember or a really complex one? Do you rely on a password manager or are your passwords saved in a browser?
Whatever you do you will want to steer clear of any entry on the Worst Password list. For the 9th year in a row password management company, SplashData has complied their 50 worst passwords of the year.
SplashData looked through more than 5 million passwords that were leaked online. Number 1 on the list is the ever predictable '123456' closely followed by '123456789'. Old favourite 'password' has fallen two places to number 4 with 'qwerty' moving up into the number 3 spot.
“Our hope by publishing this list each year is to convince people to take steps to protect themselves online, and we think these and other efforts are finally starting to pay off,” SplashData CEO Morgan Slain said in a statement. “We can tell that over the years people have begun moving toward more complex passwords, though they are still not going far enough as hackers can figure out simple alphanumeric patterns.”
With massive data breaches still happening regularly, it's incredible that these common and obvious passwords are still being used. One easy way to avoid having an obvious and weak password, or using the same password for all accounts is to use a password manager.
Here is the 2019 list of the worst passwords:
- 123456
- 123456789
- qwerty
- password
- 1234567
- 12345678
- 12345
- iloveyou
- 111111
- 123123
- abc123
- qwerty123
- 1q2w3e4r
- admin
- qwertyuiop
- 654321
- 555555
- lovely
- 7777777
- welcome
- 888888
- princess
- dragon
- password1
- 123qwe
- 666666
- 1qaz2wsx
- 333333
- michael
- sunshine
- liverpool
- 777777
- 1q2w3e4r5t
- donald
- freedom
- football
- charlie
- letmein
- !@#$%^&*
- secret
- aa123456
- 987654321
- zxcvbnm
- passw0rd
- bailey
- nothing
- shadow
- 121212
- biteme
- ginger