The Worst Popular Passwords Of 2017 Are Pretty Surprising
People thought “starwars” was a solid idea?
It's 2017 and people are still using "123456" as their password. C'mon, y'all! It may seem subversive to use that or "password" as your password because, like, how obvious do hackers think you are? Pretty obvious, friends! Just looking at this year's worst popular passwords is enough to put palm to face.
SplashData, a password management provider, shared its annual list of the worst security codes of the year. As mentioned above, "123456" and "password" took the top two spots with "12345678," "qwerty," and "12345" rounding out the top five, respectively. The provider analyzed more than 5 million leaked passwords from North America and Western Europe to reach this conclusion, excluding the codes from the 2013 Yahoo hack that, as of October 2017, has affected 3 billion accounts.
The list's top 10 is fairly predictable. It's those that round out the top 20 that seem a bit peculiar. Did folks using "starwars" as their password think they were being clever? That particular code is the 16th most popular worst password of the year! The force is strong with hackers tapping into major pop cultural moments because "dragon" and "master" are among the top 20, putting Game of Thrones fans' data at risk.
With hacks and security breaches getting more intense, like this past fall's Equifax breach, strong passwords are essential. It's easy to avoid being affected by something like Uber's recent hack that put 57 million users at risk by creating strong passwords and changing them fairly consistently. SplashData advises using codes that are at least 12 characters long with upper and lowercase letters and numbers. Using the same password for everything, too, is not in anyone's best interest.
Look, we get it. Passwords are annoying, remembering them is hard, and updating them only adds to the confusion, but ensuring your information is protected is vital. Keep a running doc of your passwords, if that helps you remember! Or, try a password generating app; Dashlane is a fabulous tool for creating unique, difficult-to-hack codes—no "starwars," "Sta4Wa4z," or "s!arWa4s" here. Keeper is another tool to generate and manage your passwords, as well. Stay woke. Stay protected.
2017's Worst Passwords
- 123456
- password
- 12345678
- qwerty
- 12345
- 123456789
- letmein
- 1234567
- football
- iloveyou
- admin
- welcome
- monkey
- login
- abc123
- starwars
- 123123
- dragon
- passw0rd
- maste
- hello
- freedom
- whatever
- qazwsx
- trustno1
