SplashData has released their annual list of the “worst passwords” based on which passwords appeared most frequently in password files obtained by hackers. As an information security specialists these lists always make me feel happy about my job security but also despondent about how security awareness efforts still aren’t changing the behaviors of many computer users.
I guess the good news is that for the first time since these lists have been compiled “password” was not the most common password. The bad news is that it only dropped to second place and the first place spot went to the equally simplistic “123456.”
Heavy sigh.
“Adobe 123” and “Photoshop” were new to the list due to the large Adobe breach last year. (Yes, you should have a different password for different websites. No, you should not make those passwords the names of the sites.)
“Jesus” was the 21st most used password of 2012, but does not appear on the 2013 list. I guess people figured out even Jesus can’t protect your account from being hacked.
“Princess” is new this year, perhaps indicating more girls using computers (Yay!) but being just as lousy about picking passwords as everyone else (Boo!).
Here is the complete list of most used passwords in 2013 and their position changes from the previous year.
- 123456 (Up 1)
- password (Down 1)
- 12345678 (Unchanged)
- qwerty (Up 1)
- abc123 (Down 1)
- 123456789 (New)
- 111111 ( Up 2)
- 1234567 (Up 5)
- iloveyou (Up 2)
- adobe123 (New)
- 123123 (Up 5)
- admin (New)
- 1234567890 (New)
- letmein (Down 7)
- photoshop (New)
- 1234 (New)
- monkey (Down 11)
- shadow (Unchanged)
- sunshine (Down 5)
- 12345 (New)
- password1 (up 4)
- princess (New)
- azerty (New)
- trustno1 (Down12)
- 000000 (New)
If you use any of those, or anything similar, as a password you should change it. Although there are many ways that hackers access accounts trying out the most common passwords is an easy method that even the most novice script-kiddie can master. You never want your password to be described as “popular” or “common.”
For tips on how to create better passwords read “What is a secure password?”
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Kim Z. Dale 