2014 was not a great year for password security.
Between the Sony leaks, the large-scale iCloud photo hack that resulted in private, naked pictures of celebrities leaking online, and security breaches at companies like Target and Home Depot, it seemed everyone was vulnerable to having their privacy breached.
On Tuesday, password management company SplashData released its annual list of the worst passwords of the last year. SplashData took a look at the 3.3 million passwords that got leaked last year, analyzing the most commonly leaked and least secure passwords.
Most of the passwords on SplashData's list come from North American and Western European users. Unsurprisingly, "123456" and "password" both topped the list this year, but phrases like "monkey," "dragon," and "letmein" also placed in the top 25 list.
To keep your passwords secure, you definitely shouldn't use any of the phrases on SplashData's list. SplashData also recommends using eight-digit or longer passwords with different types of characters (letters, numbers, and symbols); using different username and password combinations for different websites; and using a password manager to protect your passwords and help you generate passwords that are random, and thus more difficult for others to guess correctly.
Here's SplashData's full list. If your password is on here, you should probably consider changing it.
Presenting SplashData’s “Worst Passwords of 2014”:
- 123456 (Unchanged from 2013)
- password (Unchanged)
- 12345 (Up 17)
- 12345678 (Down 1)
- qwerty (Down 1)
- 1234567890 (Unchanged)
- 1234 (Up 9)
- baseball (New)
- dragon (New)
- football (New)
- 1234567 (Down 4)
- monkey (Up 5)
- letmein (Up 1)
- abc123 (Down 9)
- 111111 (Down 8)
- mustang (New)
- access (New)
- shadow (Unchanged)
- master (New)
- michael (New)
- superman (New)
- 696969 (New)
- 123123 (Down 12)
- batman (New)
- trustno1 (Down 1)
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