Every year SplashData releases an annual list of the 25 most popular and insecure passwords, in an attempt to encourage the adoption of stronger passwords to improve internet security.
Unsurprisingly, “123456” and “password” topped off the list, just like last year and the year before….
While complex passwords can be hard to come up with, especially seeing as nearly everything we sign up to online requires a password, it is important to come up with new and difficult passwords for each of your electronic accounts.
Even though more and more companies are offering different ways to secure your accounts, such as Apple’s fingerprint scanners and Windows Hello which has a front facing camera and facial recognition, these alternatives can still have their disadvantages.
People leave their fingerprints on almost everything they touch, and the Intel RealSense camera modules that are built into some PCs and tablets are very expensive and not available in cheaper models.
While it seems passwords are here to stay- at least for the moment, the best thing to do is to activate 2-step authorization and to ensure you have a strong password which includes the following features:
- At least eight characters long
- Does not contain your user name, real name, or company name
- Does not contain a dictionary word
- Is significantly different from your other passwords
- Contains characters instead of letters (eg 3 instead of E and 0 instead of o)
Without further ado, here are the 25 most popular passwords of 2015:
1) 123456
2) password
3) 12345678
4) qwerty
5) 12345
6) 123456789
7) football
8) 1234
9) 1234567
10) baseball
11) welcome
12) 1234567890
13) abc123
14) 111111
15) 1qaz2wsx
16) dragon
17) master
18) monkey
19) letmein
20) login
21) princess
22) qwertyuiop
23) solo
24) passw0rd (using zero)
25) starwars
- How To Build a Competitive Advantage With IT - 10 October 2022
- How To Measure Success In Your IT Department - 7 October 2022
- The Simple IT Strategy Framework for a Post COVID-19 Workplace - 6 October 2022