The top 10 worst passwords for 2018
Coming up with (and remembering!) a hard password can be difficult. Most of us tend to stick to easy to remember patterns or words that we use in our everyday lives. However, this makes your accounts easier to hack into.
SplashData, who are a password management and security system organisation, took the time to evaluate over 5 million passwords that had been leaked on the internet. This was to evaluate what trends and habits users continued to fall into. It appears that none of us have learned to make more secure passwords, especially with five of the passwords in a row being numbers.
Without further ado, the worst passwords for 2018 are:
- 123456
- password
- 123456789
- 12345678
- 12345
- 111111
- 1234567
- sunshine
- qwerty
- iloveyou
The CEO of SplashData, Morgain Slain, explained why you should stay away from pop culture or movie references in your passwords as well.
“Hackers have great success using celebrity names, terms from pop culture and sports, and simple keyboard patterns to break into accounts online because they know so many people are using those easy-to- remember combinations,” he said.
It’s with these tips and tricks that hackers can gain access to your accounts. However, Slain states that the reason they publish the worst passwords is to raise awareness.
“Our hope by publishing this list each year is to convince people to take steps to protect themselves online,” says Slain. “It’s a real head-scratcher that with all the risks known, people continue putting themselves at such risk year-after-year.”
If you see your password in the top 10, maybe take this as a sign that it’s not as secure as once thought. Check out the full list here.