Poor Passwords still exist

November 24, 2011

Seems that people are still opting to choose poor passwords.

According to SplashData, the most common passwords on the web for 2011 are:

  1. password
  2. 123456
  3. 12345678
  4. qwerty
  5. abc123
  6. monkey
  7. 1234567
  8. letmein
  9. trustno1
  10. dragon
  11. baseball
  12. 111111
  13. iloveyou
  14. master
  15. sunshine
  16. ashley
  17. bailey
  18. passwOrd
  19. shadow
  20. 123123
  21. 654321
  22. superman
  23. qazwsx
  24. michael
  25. football

So if your password is in this list then you need to start thinking about a more secure password.

Begin by fulfilling a simple criteria:

  • Minimum Length – try to ensure that your password is at least 8 characters long.
  • Maximum length – the longer a password the more secure it is but do not make it too long. 14 characters is about the right length.
  • Complexity – the more varied the characters you use the less likely your password will be guessed. So you should try to use three of four of the following four types of characters:
    1. Lowercase
    2. Uppercase
    3. Numbers
    4. Special characters such as !@#$%^&*(){}[]

Either way, if you pick a poor password, expect to be hacked.