Don’t Use These 25 Passwords—Everyone Else Does

If you want to make it especially easy for hackers to get into your accounts here’s what to do: Use one of these 25 passwords.
Don’t Use These 25 Passwords—Everyone Else Does
Hands type on a computer keyboard. Damian Dovarganes/AP Photo
Cindy Drukier
Updated:

If you want to make it especially easy for hackers to get into your accounts here’s what to do: Use one of these 25 passwords.

Every year SplashData publishes a list of the 25 most common passwords found on the internet. The list is compiled from the millions of stolen passwords that end up being posted online during the year.

The“Worst Passwords of 2013,” the newest list, was heavily influenced by the huge Adobe security breach that affected some 150 million customers.

SplashData strongly suggests that if you’re using one of these passwords, to change it immediately.

They also provide some good tips to keep your accounts safe.

You'll often hear that you should make complex passwords, at least eight characters long with a mix of character types. But people find those hard to remember. So here are some best practices.

Don’t use passwords with common substitutions like “dr4mat1c” — those are increasingly vulnerable as hacker technology gets more sophisticated.

To make easy to remember passwords, you can use passphrases separated by dashes or other characters. Using random words, though, is better than common phrases. For example, “cakes years birthday” or “smiles_light_skip?”

Don’t use the same username/password combos for multiple websites. Best is a unique combination for every site, but in any case, avoid using the same password for entertainment sites as you use for your email, social media, or banking.

 

Rank  

Password  

Change from 2012

1
123456
Up 1
2
password
Down 1
3
12345678
Unchanged
4
qwerty
Up 1
5
abc123
Down 1
6
123456789
New
7
111111
Up 2
8
1234567
Up 5
9
iloveyou
Up 2
10
adobe123
New
11
123123
Up 5
12
sunshine
Up 2
13
1234567890
New
14
letmein
Down 7
15
photoshop
New
16
1234
New
17
monkey
Down 11
18
shadow
Unchanged
19
sunshine
Down 5
20
12345
New
21
password1
Up 4
22
princess
New
23
azerty
New
24
trustno1
Down 12
25
000000
New
Cindy Drukier
Cindy Drukier
Author
Cindy Drukier is a veteran journalist, editor, and producer. She's the host of NTD's International Reporters Roundtable featured on EpochTV, and perviously host of NTD's The Nation Speaks. She's also an award-winning documentary filmmaker. Her two films are available on EpochTV: "Finding Manny" and "The Unseen Crisis"
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