14:55 11 February 2014
The 25 worst internet passwords have been revealed. The annual list from mobile software developer SplashData is also timely as it is in close proximity to Safer Internet Day 2014 which fell on February 11th.
With passwords often marking the first and most important line of defence for online banking, social networking, emails and much more, these safeguards are of critical importance when it comes to protecting against fraudsters and predators.
Last year, the most common was password was, shockingly enough, just “password”. This year, the classic of absent imagination “123456” is at the top of the list.
The trick to picking a secure password is to make it both memorable to you and unique to your other passwords. Numbers are often, but not always, a requirement. Instead of randomly jumbling numbers and letters together (e.g. “1h4m63mxk”) try blending words and numbers together that may be nonsensical to others but memorable for you.
Here are 2013’s 25 most popular passwords:
1 123456
2 password
3 12345678
4 qwerty
5 abc123
6 123456789
7 111111
8 1234567
9 iloveyou
10 adobe123
11 123123
12 admin
13 1234567890
14 letmein
15 photoshop
16 1234
17 monkey
18 shadow
19 sunshine
20 12345
21 password1
22 princess
23 azerty
24 trustno1
25 0
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