The maker of a password management applications company has released its annual “Worst Passwords” list, and this year, it includes some “Star Wars” terms.
“Solo,” “princess,” and “starwars” made SplashData’s list.
But the worst for 2015 were “123456” and “password,” which tend to make every year’s list, which, according to the company, is “compiled from more than 2 million leaked passwords during the year.”
Next are “12345678,” “qwerty,” “12345,” “123456789,” “football,” “1234,” “1234567,” “baseball,” “welcome,” “1234567890,” “abc123,” “111111,” “1qaz2wsx,” “dragon,” “master,” “monkey,” “letmein,” “login,” “princess,” “qwertyuiop,” “solo,” “passw0rd,” and “starwars.”
For example, “1234567890”, “1qaz2wsx” (first two columns of main keys on a standard keyboard), and “qwertyuiop” (top row of keys on a standard keyboard) all appear in the top 25 list for the first time, but they are each based on simple patterns that would be easily guessable by hackers.
As in past years’ lists, simple numerical passwords remain common, with six of the top 10 passwords on the 2015 list comprised of numbers only.
Sports remain a popular password theme. While baseball may be America’s pastime, “football” has overtaken it as a popular password. Both appear in the Top 10 of SplashData’s list, with “football” climbing three spots to number seven and “baseball” dropping two spots to number 10.
The company said that it has seen an effort by people to make their passwords more secure by adding more characters, but if the longer passwords are simply based on simple patterns, it’s basically useless.
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