Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Top Passwords Folks are using….are you using one of them?

The point can’t be hammered home enough: As annoying as it is to have capitalized letters, numbers and symbols in a random password combination, it’s a much better alternative to having accounts infiltrated by those with malicious intent.

Just in case you’re unsure of what a bad password might be…here are the top 25.

Although the top three worst ones in the list remain unchanged – ”password,” “123456,” and “12345678,” — there are newcomers as well, including “jesus” and “ninja”.

“At this time of year, people enjoy focusing on scary costumes, movies and decorations, but those who have been through it can tell you how terrifying it is to have your identity stolen because of a hacked password,” Morgan Slain, SplashData CEO, said in a statement. “We’re hoping that with more publicity about how risky it is to use weak passwords, more people will start taking simple steps to protect themselves by using stronger passwords and using different passwords for different websites.”

Here’s the full list in order of worst password offender:

  1. password      Unchanged
  2. 123456          Unchanged
  3. 12345678     Unchanged
  4. abc123           Up 1
  5. qwerty           Down 1
  6. monkey         Unchanged
  7. letmein          Up 1
  8. dragon          Up 2
  9. 111111            Up 3
  10. baseball        Up 1
  11. iloveyou        Up 2
  12. trustno1        Down 3
  13. 1234567        Down 6
  14. sunshine      Up 1
  15. master           Down 1
  16. 123123           Up 4
  17. welcome        New
  18. shadow          Up 1
  19. ashley             Down 3
  20. football           Up 5
  21. jesus                New
  22. michael          Up 2
  23. ninja               New
  24. mustang         New
  25. password1     New

This list was developed from files of stolen passwords posted online by hackers. I suggests if your personal or company passwords include any on this list to change them.

“Even though each year hacking tools get more sophisticated, thieves still tend to prefer easy targets,” Slain said. “Just a little bit more effort in choosing better passwords will go a long way toward making you safer online.”

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