(Newswire.net — August 13, 2015) — On its annual list of worst passwords in 2014, SplashData announced little or no progress when choosing the wrong password. The first place still belongs to the “123456” combination. Besides the obvious number sequence, the word “password” is a runner up, at the worst passwords list.
Most common numeric sequences, according to SplashData list, are “12345,” “1234” and “123456789.” The new numeric sequence on the most common password list is “696969.”
Beside numeric combinations, the most common words used as password in 2014 were “qwerty,” “dragon” and “football.”
Although SplashData collected passwords from Russian users, the ‘worst passwords list’ includes only analysis from North America and Western Europe.
Despite how unsafe they are, ‘easy’ words or patterns remain popular, according to SplashData CEO Morgan Slain.
“Don’t use a favorite sport as your password,” Slain said adding that “baseball” and “football” are in top 10, and “hockey,” “soccer” and “golfer” are in the top 100 most common passwords. “Don’t use a favorite team either, as “yankees,” “eagles,” “steelers,” “rangers,” and “lakers” are all in the top 100,” she urged.
When it comes to number sequences, SplashData advises avoidance of our birthday or especially just your birth year — 1989, 1990, 1991, and 1992 are all in the top 100.
“While baby name books are popular for naming children, don’t use them as sources for picking passwords. Common names such as “michael,” “jennifer,” “thomas,” “jordan,” “hunter,” “michelle,” “charlie,” “andrew,” and “daniel” are all in the top 50,” SplashData CEO advised.
So, which passwords should we use?
According to SplashData, we should use passwords of eight characters or more with mixed types of characters. Also, the combination of letters and numbers is safer than only numbers or only letters.
If you value confidentiality of your data, you may want to use a password generator such as “splashid.”
Presenting SplashData’s “Worst Passwords of 2014”:
|
Rank |
Password |
Change from 2013 |
|
1 |
123456 |
No Change |
|
2 |
password |
No Change |
|
3 |
12345 |
Up 17 |
|
4 |
12345678 |
Down 1 |
|
5 |
qwerty |
Down 1 |
|
6 |
123456789 |
No Change |
|
7 |
1234 |
Up 9 |
|
8 |
baseball |
New |
|
9 |
dragon |
New |
|
10 |
football |
New |
|
11 |
1234567 |
Down 4 |
|
12 |
monkey |
Up 5 |
|
13 |
letmein |
Up 1 |
|
14 |
abc123 |
Down 9 |
|
15 |
111111 |
Down 8 |
|
16 |
mustang |
New |
|
17 |
access |
New |
|
18 |
shadow |
Unchanged |
|
19 |
master |
New |
|
20 |
michael |
New |
|
21 |
superman |
New |
|
22 |
696969 |
New |
|
23 |
123123 |
Down 12 |
|
24 |
batman |
New |
|
25 |
trustno1 |
Down 1 |