Please don't use these passwords. Sincerely, the Internet
Think you're protected from data breach fallout with your strong passwords? When hackers commandeer computers to create botnets, the damage they cause affects plenty of other users. And their ticket in is often stupid-simple: terrible passwords. SplashData has just released its annual list of the worst of them, and things have changed depressingly little over last year. The most commonly hacked password is still "123456," which edged out a past champion of apathy, "password." Other top picks in the an alphanumeric hall of shame are "12345678," "qwerty," "monkey" and new this year, "batman." According to security expert Mark Burnett, the top 25 passwords (below) represent an eye-popping 2.2 percent of passwords exposed.
The good news is that fewer people are using bad passwords than in 2013, perhaps thanks to some well-publicized data breaches at Sony, Target and elsewhere. SplashData reminds folks to create passwords with eight, mixed characters not based on easy-to-brute-force dictionary words -- even with substitutions like "dr@mat1c." As pointed out by Buffer Open, other methods include pass phrases, mnemonic devices and other memory tricks -- including a gem from XKCD. Since you shouldn't use the same password on more than one site, it's also a good idea to use one of the many password managers out there, like LastPass or SplashID. Those let you access your entire collection of passwords with just a single passphrase -- one that had better be a lot stronger than "123456."
RankPasswordChange from 2013 1 123456 Unchanged 2 password Unchanged 3 12345 Up 17 4 12345678 Down 1 5 qwerty Down 1 6 123456789 Unchanged 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
Engadget
Steve Dent
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