Trending Science: 2018’s 25 worst passwords – are you the 1 in 10 who’s used one?

Don’t we ever learn? The risks are known and well documented. Hacks and leaks continue to make headlines around the world. But we continue to put ourselves at risk every year. We know that the worst passwords are the easiest to guess, yet millions of us use them anyway.

According to a study by California-based SplashData of more than 5 million passwords leaked on the internet during 2018 quite a few people are still using some passwords that are very easy to guess and hack. For the last 8 years SplashData a leading provider of security applications and services has been evaluating millions of leaked passwords to determine which are the most easily hacked.

The American firm reveals that the worst passwords continue to be ‘123456’ and ‘password’, claiming the top 2 spots respectively. This is the fifth year in a row these passwords have held the top two spots. About 3 % of people have used ‘123456’. Most of the leaked passwords were from Europeans or North Americans.

President Trump debuted on this year’s list with ‘donald’ at 23. Other newcomers to the list include ‘111111’ (6), ‘sunshine’ (8), ‘princess’ (11), ‘666666’ (14) and ‘password1’ (24). Nearly 10 % of people have relied on at least 1 of the 25 in the past year.

Why aren’t we getting any smarter about our passwords?

Some obvious passwords are particularly weak and make life easy for cybercriminals. “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” SplashData CEO Morgan Slain told the United Kingdom’s ‘Daily Mail’. “Our hope by publishing this list each year is to convince people to take steps to protect themselves online.”

Is yours on the list? SplashData offers some tips to build a better password:
1. Use passphrases of 12 characters or more with mixed types of characters.
2. Use a different password for each of your logins. That way, if a hacker gets access to one of your passwords, they won’t be able to use it to access other sites.
3. Protect your assets and personal identity by using a password manager to organise passwords, generate secure random passwords and automatically log in to websites.

Feeling relieved? Don’t forget to have a look at the rest of SplashData’s list of 100 worst passwords. You may not feel so safe after all!