From your grocery shopping to online banking, we can do almost everything online and with so many accounts and profiles to think about, managing passwords can be a tricky business. But the more vast our digital lives become, the more important it is to protect ourselves in every way possible.
From your grocery shopping to online banking, we can do almost everything online and with so many accounts and profiles to think about, managing passwords can be a tricky business. But the more vast our digital lives become, the more important it is to protect ourselves in every way possible.
Password management company SplashData releases an annual list of the top 100 worst passwords still commonly used – in fact, 10% of people use them! With artificial intelligence and machine learning on the rise, password cracking is becoming more automated and with easy-to-guess credentials, it makes a hacker’s job easier than ever.
Top of the list for 2018 was 12345, possibly the easiest of them all! A password like this significantly increases the chances of an account takeover and risks your personal information being compromised. The remaining 24 in descending order are…
2. password
3. 123456789
4, 12345678
5. 12345
6. 111111
7. 1234567
8. sunshine
9. qwerty Down
10. iloveyou
11. princess
12. admin
13. welcome
14. 666666
15. abc123
16. football
17. 123123
18. monkey
19. 654321
20. !@#$%^&*
21. charlie
22. aa123456
23. donald
24. password1
25. qwerty123
In DynaRisk’s line of work, we too happen to see some questionable passwords…
While ‘scoobydoo16ks’ is certainly random, the lack of special characters means this is still easy to crack. As for ‘sexkitten’ and ‘realmadrid’, though they haven’t made SplashData’s list, they have certainly made ours!
If you are using a password from this list for one or more accounts, we strongly recommend changing it. Not only will it help to protect you from a potential account take over, but it will also safeguard you in future as hacking technologies become more advanced. Our top tips for creating a secure, hacker-proof password are…
- Use at least 12 characters
- Use a combination of upper and lowercase letters
- Use numbers
- Use special characters
Not sure how your password compares? Sign up to DynaRisk and we can help you to manage your entire digital footprint.