World's most hackable passwords: Is yours on the list?
Many people still stick to “easy” passwords to secure sensitive accounts, a study has suggested.
The UK National Cyber Security Centre has released the top 100,000 passwords that have been exposed in data breaches around the world. Using the data from Troy Hunt’s Have I Been Pwned site, the study aimed to identify the gaps in cyber-security knowledge and help reduce the occurrence of account breaches and exploitation.
The most popular password on the list was 123456, which was used by more than 23 million breached accounts. On the second place was 123456789, followed by “qwerty”, “password” and 111111.
The most common name to be used as a password was “ashley” with more than 430,000 appearances. Other top names included “michael”, “daniel”, “jessica” and “charlie”.
Dan U, senior security researcher at the NCSC said blocking these common passwords would help users protect their accounts. “Security works when people act as a community, whether that's allowing people to realise how common their password is, or just giving them confidence that the password they've picked at work or home is more sensible,” he wrote in a statement.
More websites and Internet services have been hit with security breaches in recent years, including Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo and more.
The NCSC recommended choosing three random yet memorable words to create a strong password, such as “walltinshirt” or “coffeetrainfish”, and avoiding credential reuse.
Top 20 most popular passwords:
- 123456
- 123456789
- qwerty
- password
- 111111
- 12345678
- abc123
- 1234567
- password1
- 12345
- 1234567890
- 123123
- 000000
- iloveyou
- 1234
- 1q2w3e4r5t
- qwertyuiop
- 123
- monkey
- dragon