With minimum password requirements getting more and more complicated, some people like to keep things as simple (or idiotic) as possible. This puts their security at very high risk.
Unchanged from last year, the three most popular passwords for 2012 were “password,” “123456,” and “12345678,” according to SplashData’s annual “25 Worst Passwords of the Year” list. The list was compiled from files containing millions of stolen passwords posted online by hackers. But that isn’t to say that our choices have stagnated; new entries to the list this year include “welcome,” “Jesus,” “ninja,” “mustang,” and “password1.”
Here are this year’s entries. You might want to change your passwords, people:
A security breach revealed in July at Yahoo yielded nearly a half million login credentials stored in plain text. Other password thefts at LinkedIn, eHarmony, and Last.fm contributed to approximately 8 million passwords posted in two separate lists to hacker sites in early June.
SplashData’s list, including changes in ranking from last year’s list:
- password (unchanged)
- 123456 (unchanged)
- 12345678 (unchanged)
- abc123 (up 1)
- qwerty (down 1)
- monkey (unchanged)
- letmein (up 1)
- dragon (up 2)
- 111111 (up 3)
- baseball (up 1)
- iloveyou (up 2)
- trustno1 (down 3)
- 1234567 (down 6)
- sunshine (up 1)
- master (down 1)
- 123123 (up 4)
- welcome (new)
- shadow (up 1)
- ashley (down 3)
- football (up 5)
- Jesus (new)
- michael (up 2)
- ninja (new)
- mustang (new)
- password1 (new)
Remember that it’s a bad idea to use your name, common words, or anything personally linked to you that would be easily guessed. Make them long and complex.
via CNet
