MIAMI (WSVN) — Choosing a password could be easy, but choosing the right password is crucial to keeping your information safe from hackers. SplashData.com released their annual "Worst Passwords List” highlighting the most insecure password habits of some Internet users.
To no surprise, "123456" and "password" were the most commonly used passwords.
SplashData hopes the list will encourage people to use stronger passwords and improve their Internet security.
“We have seen an effort by many people to be more secure by adding characters to passwords, but if these longer passwords are based on simple patterns they will put you in just as much risk of having your identity stolen by hackers,” said Morgan Slain, CEO of SplashData.
Here’s the “Worst Passwords of 2015”:
1 – 123456
2 – password
3 – 12345678
4 – qwerty
5 – 12345
6 – 123456789
7 – football
8 – 1234
9 – 1234567
10 – baseball
11 – welcome
12 – 1234567890
13 – abc123
14 – 111111
15 – 1qaz2wsx
16 – dragon
17 – master
18 – monkey
19 – letmein
20 – login
21 – princess
22 – qwertyuiop
23 – solo
24 – passw0rd
25 – starwars
The company recommends using passwords or passphrases of twelve characters or more with mixed types of characters, avoid using the same password over and over again on different websites, and use a password manager such as SplashID to organize and protect passwords, generate random passwords, and automatically log into websites.