Every year the guys at SplashData analyze millions of hacked and leaked passwords from websites and online services. They then publish this most commonly used passwords that they find.
It is never a good idea to use such obvious passwords because there is virtually no security. In fact, it is a common practice for hackers to simply run through the list of common passwords with multiple user names. Boom – they get access to your private information and can use it to gain more information and cause damage.
Here is the list.
1. 123456 The top password in use.
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2. password At least it is easy to remember!
3. 123456789 A bit stronger than the #1 password 🙂
4. 1234567 A bit weaker 🙁
5. 12345 and the list goes on…
6. 111111 Don’t forget to change to 222222 the next time policy forces
7. 1234567 The number actually depends on the length requirement
8. sunshine
9. qwert
10. iloveyou
11. princes
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12. admin
13. welcome
14. 666666
15. abc123
We found this list to be quite amusing. It is human nature for people to choose passwords that are easy to remember. Easy to remember passwords are often easy to guess.
This is one of the reasons that we think the use of passwords will eventually go away. In fact, one potential solution is outlined in Passwords Suck and Will Eventually Go Away.
Of course, MFA (Multi-factor Authentication) has been introduced to be the savior of the password weakness dilemma. But hackers are becoming more and more sophisticated. There are many flaws in MFA also! We will be introducing some of the vulnerabilities related to MFA soon. Hackers are actively exploiting MFA!
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