Password is no longer the worst password, 123456 takes top spot

“Password” is no longer the most popular - and therefore worst - password. Instead, more people are still using “123456” as their password.

SplashData just released its annual list of the worst passwords, which shows “password” falling to No. 2. The list for this year was helped out by the massive Adobe security breach last fall, which revealed how many people are using weak passwords.

“Seeing passwords like ‘adobe123’ and ‘photoshop’ on this list offers a good reminder not to base your password on the name of the website or application you are accessing," SplashData CEO Morgan Slain said in a statement.

Ars Technica notes that the Adobe hack was analyzed by Stricture Consulting Group, which found that 1.91 million Adobe users picked “123456” as their password. While SplashData’s list is slightly different than Stricture’s list, adobe123 is still on its list, coming in as the 10th most used password.

The numbers show that there are still far too many people using weak passwords that could easily be hacked. It’s important to remind everyone, especially in the wake of huge security breaches like the one at Target, that it is vital to keep your data as secure as possible.

“As always, we hope that with more publicity about how risky it is to use weak passwords, more people will start taking simple steps to protect themselves by using stronger passwords and using different passwords for different websites,” Slain sai.d

In other words, don’t take password advice from Spaceball’s President Skroob.

Here’s SplashData’s full list, including the chance from the 2012 list.

1. 123456 (Up 1)
2. password (Down 1)
3. 12345678 (Unchanged)
4. qwerty (Up 1)
5. abc123 (Down 1)
6. 123456789 (New)
7. 111111 (Up 2)
8. 1234567 (Up 5)
9. iloveyou (Up 2)
10. adobe123 (New)
11. 123123 (Up 5)
12. admin (New)
13. 1234567890 (New)
14. letmein (Down 7)
15. photoshop (New)
16. 1234 (New)
17. monkey (Down 11)
18. shadow (Unchanged)
19. sunshine (Down 5)
20. 12345 (New)
21. password1 (Up 4)
22. princess (New)
23. azerty (New)
24. trustno1 (Down 12)
25. 000000 (New)

image: Wikimedia Commons

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