What makes a good password? Obviously a combination of letters (upper case and lower case), numbers and symbols; but another important factor is that it is unique. SplashData are an Internet security company that have researched the 25 most common passwords of 2014. If you use a password on this list, you need to get it changed!
The list is based on data from 3.3 million leaked passwords from Europe and North America, and no surprise that ‘password’ ‘qwerty’ and ‘letmein’ feature.
There has been a number of high-profile hacking stories recently, but your accounts won’t need to be hacked if you use one of these passwords!
The top 25 most-used passwords of 2014 are as follows:
- 123456
- password
- 12345
- 12345678
- qwerty
- 1234567890
- 1234
- baseball
- dragon
- football
- 1234567
- monkey
- letmein
- abc123
- 111111
- mustang
- access
- shadow
- master
- michael
- superman
- 696969
- 123123
- batman
- trustno1
SplashData have also given advice based on the top 100 passwords, you should avoid the following:
- Passwords based on simple patterns on your keyboard (e.g. qwertyuiop).
- Any password using numbers alone.
- Don’t use a favorite sport as your password (baseball, football, hockey, soccer, golfer are all in the top 100).
- Don’t use a favorite team either (e.g. manutd).
- Don’t use your birthday or especially just your birth year — 1989, 1990, 1991, and 1992 are all in the top 100.
- Common names (michael, jennifer, thomas, michelle, charlie, andrew, and daniel are all in the top 50).
Also in the top 100 are swear words and phrases, hobbies, famous athletes, car brands, and film names.
Read more: http://splashdata.com/press/worst-passwords-of-2014.htm
