Nation & World News
Top 25 worst passwords revealed
By Cox Media Group National Content Desk
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People use passwords for phones, computers, tablets and other gadgets to keep their information private and secure.
Credit card numbers, social security numbers, phone numbers and personal photos are among the many items digital users hope to keep safe.
But what if the passwords employed to protect that material aren't strong?
SplashData, a password management firm, recently compiled a list of the most insecure passwords of 2015. The list was generated from more than 2 million leaked passwords during the year.
The two most common passwords that have topped SplashData's annual lists since 2011 showed up again on the most recent report: "123456" and "password."
Here are the top 25 most insecure passwords according to SplashData:
1. 123456
2. password
3.12345678
4. qwerty
5. 12345
6. 123456789
7. football
8. 1234
9. 1234567
10. baseball
11. welcome
12. 1234567890
13. abc123
14. 111111
15. 1qaz2wsx
16. dragon
17. master
18. monkey
19. letmein
20. login
21. princess
22. qwertyuiop
23. solo
24. passw0rd
25. starwars
"We have seen an effort by many people to be more secure by adding characters to passwords, but if these longer passwords are based on simple patterns they will put you in just as much risk of having your identity stolen by hackers," said Morgan Slain, CEO of SplashData. "As we see on the list, using common sports and pop culture terms is also a bad idea. 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."
