Every year, SplashData complies a list of the millions of stolen passwords made public throughout the last twelve months, and sorts them by popularity. This year’s results are based on more than 2 million leaked passwords and highlights one of the largest problems in online security: weak, easy to guess passwords. Yes, “123456″ and “password” are still in the list. As we continue to move our lives online, it’s time for everyone to get serious about creating strong passwords.
- 123456 (Unchanged)
- password (Unchanged)
- 12345678 (Up 1)
- qwerty (Up 1)
- 12345 (Down 2)
- 123456789 (Unchanged)
- football (Up 3)
- 1234 (Down 1)
- 1234567 (Up 2)
- baseball (Down 2)
- welcome (New)
- 1234567890 (New)
- abc123 (Up 1)
- 111111 (Up 1)
- 1qaz2wsx (New)
- dragon (Down 7)
- master (Up 2)
- monkey (Down 6)
- letmein (Down 6)
- login (New)
- princess (New)
- qwertyuiop (New)
- solo (New)
- passw0rd (New)
- starwars (New)
So how do we create strong passwords that are harder to crack? Common sense certainly plays a leading role, but here are some quick guidelines:
- Don’t use words found in the dictionary.
- Mix in numbers and symbols, when possible.
- Use capital and lowercase letters.
- Length matters! Longer passwords can take significantly longer to crack.
- Never re-use a password.
- Use a password manager to generate unique, random, strong passwords.
Let’s make 2016 a year where online security improves!