In this age of digital insecurity–i.e. the Sony hack case and continual reports of people having the information on their computers compromised– you’d think people would use more secure passwords to protect themselves. You would be wrong. Very, very wrong.
SplashData, a company specifically devoted to creating more secure password applications, has released its Top 10 list of the most popular and worst passwords for 2014, and this list shows that despite the warnings we get about making our passwords more complex and harder to crack, we still tend to take the easy way out. ?Here is their Top 10 list.
1. 123456
The first six numbers? ?Easy to remember, but is that really the best we can do? ?Come on, a trained chimp could do better than this.
2. password
We all know a friend or co-worker who uses this one. Yeah, they’d need to call Stephen Hawking to crack this code. You could at least go with “password” and?then some random numbers. But why complicate matters?
3. 12345
If 123456 doesn’t fool the North Korean hackers, go minimalist and take off the last digit. They’ll never figure out your brilliant subterfuge!
4. 12345678
Or you could add a few numbers in the hope that your adversary can’t count that high.
5. qwerty
Then we have the genius move of just tapping out the first six letters on your keyboard. Who was the first person to use this? A beginning typing student with too much time on his hands?
6. 123456789
(Sigh) When in doubt, add numbers.
7. 1234
Or take a few away.
8. baseball
OK, as a fan of baseball, I have to admit this one has a special place in my heart. No one would ever guess you’re into baseball just by the ratty team cap you wear on weekends to the grocery store.
9. dragon
Popular, no doubt, with those who play way too much World of Warcraft and live in their parent’s basement.
10. football
Again, I almost feel the need to recuse myself on this one because I also love football. But maybe you’d be better off if you just used the name of your favorite team and the jersey number of your favorite player. Who am I kidding? That would require effort.
h/t: Crave Online
