Following on from the technical hint and tip we provided in November last year, which you can also view here, we came across an interesting article this month which covers a survey completed by SplashData (a password management tool) which looked at over 3.3 million leaked passwords from the last 12 months.
Primarily the data provided was from North America and Western Europe, and it details a list of common passwords used across the internet. The most popular password from last year – “123456” – has again grabbed the number one spot.
To review the top 25 please refer to the list below:
| 1.123456 | 6. 123456789 | 11. 1234567 | 16. mustang | 21. superman |
| 2. password | 7. 1234 | 12. monkey | 17. access | 22. 696969 |
| 3. 12345 | 8. baseball | 13. letmein | 18. shadow | 23. 123123 |
| 4. 12345678 | 9. dragon | 14. abc123 | 19. master | 24. batman |
| 5. qwerty | 10. football | 15. 111111 | 20. michael | 25. trustno1 |
SplashData has also recommended tips for those of you who are quickly changing passwords on reviewing the list above. The company said you should avoid keyboard patterns from the top row of letters (i.e., “qwertyuiop”), as well as favourite sports, birthdays, birth years, and common names.
As mentioned above you can also use the article previously produced by Prism here for further advice and guidance in creating a strong password.