These Are The Worst Passwords Of 2015

It appears that ever since 2011 this has been the most frequently hacked watchword chosen by online users, managing year after year to vanquish its main adversary, “password”.

It has become a tradition over the past few years to have a worst passwords list for the previous year, SplashData has actually been doing it for five years now, and it seems that every year it’s exactly the same.

“We hope that with more publicity about how risky it is to use weak passwords, more people will take steps to strengthen their passwords and, most importantly, use different passwords for different websites”, said Morgan Slain, CEO of SplashData, in a statement.

The list revealed that “123456” remains the most common password, followed by “password” and “12345678”. One of the key trends found was that longer passwords don’t always equate to more secure passwords – you’ll see from numerous entries in the top ten.

That means passwords based on keyboard arrangements, such as “1qaz2wsx” or “qwertyuiop” (the first two columns and top row of the standard keyboard, respectively) put users at just as much risk as simpler passwords. The password “starwars” also entered the top 25 in 2015.

New, but equally poor passwords joined the 2015 list, including “welcome” and “login” made their debut. If one of your passwords is on it, we recommend you change it as soon as possible…

SplashData, which provides password management applications to businesses and consumers, compiled its list from the more than 2 million passwords that were leaked online past year.

Malicious hackers use a wide range of tools, including bots, to crack passwords.

Hopefully, this new ranking will help people know which words of identification to avoid at least from this point onward, and convince them to imagine passwords that are random, lengthy, intricate (combining letters in different cases, numbers and symbols) and yet easy to memorize and recall.