2015 has come and gone, and a security research firm has published their annual “Worst Passwords” list. Based on leaked password data that has gone public through the year, they have published the 25 worst passwords – is yours on the list?
According to SplashData, these are the 25 worst passwords (and a comparison to their position on the 2014 list) based on how often they were used in those leaks:
- 123456 (unchanged)
- password (unchanged)
- 12345678 (up 1)
- qwerty (up 1)
- 12345 (down 2)
- 123456789 (unchanged)
- football (up 3)
- 1234 (down 1)
- 1234567 (up 2)
- baseball (down 2)
- welcome (new)
- 1234567890 (new)
- abc123 (up 1)
- 111111 (up 1)
- 1qaz2wsx (new)
- dragon (down 7)
- master (up 2)
- monkey (down 6)
- letmein (down 6)
- login (new)
- princess (new)
- qwertyuiop (new)
- solo (new)
- passw0rd (new)
- starwars (new)
As you can see, there are some new ones on the list. However, while passwords like “1qaz2wsx” look secure, if you look at the position of those keys on a standard US Qwerty Keyboard, it’s not as secure as you’d think.
We recommend using a password manager to generate random, secure passwords for the sites you visit. You can read more about password managers on our password management tech tip.