Monday, February 8, 2016

The 2015 Annual List of the Worst Passwords

Sorry Star Wars Fans, But You Just May Need to Change your Password.

It’s that time of the year again. SplashData releases its 5th annual report of the most commonly used passwords in order to highlight the insecure password habits of Internet users.

The purpose of this list is to encourage users to become more conscience of Internet security and the threat of stolen passwords. Using weak passwords puts the user at risk for hacking and identity theft.

Here are the top 25 worst passwords that made it onto the annual list:
  1. 123456
  2. password
  3. 12345678
  4. qwerty
  5. 12345
  6. 123456789
  7. football
  8. 1234
  9. 1234567
  10. baseball
  11. welcome
  12. 1234567890
  13. abc123
  14. 111111
  15. 1qaz2wsx
  16. dragon
  17. master
  18. monkey
  19. letmein
  20. login
  21. princess
  22. qwertyuiop
  23. solo
  24. passw0rd
  25. starwars

Numerical sequences have taken several spots on the 2015 list, along with keys that are in order on the keyboard, such as qwerty & 1qaz2wsx. Of course, pop references are always a hit and this year was about Star Wars, but even The Force can’t protect you from malware.

Longer keywords did appear, but using a longer password does not add security if the password is simple or has a detectable pattern.

The thing we want you to remember is that the list above was compiled from passwords that were compromised and leaked this past year, so they have already proven to be “hackable”.  If you would care for a downloadable PDF document with the passwords and security tips from SplashData, you can safely download it from CMS.