‘Password’ No Longer The King Of Bad-Idea Passwords

The password is…

No matter how frequently consumers are warned about creating predictable passwords, many just aren’t getting the message. The good news from the latest survey of leaked passwords is that the most frequently used password is no longer “password.” The bad news is that the new bad-password champ is equally idiotic.

According to the annual list of most popular passwords from the folks at SplashData, “password” has slipped to number two, giving way to the terribly clever “123456,” presumably chosen by all those people who wanted to make sure they fulfilled a six-character requirement.

In fact, seven of the 20 most frequently found passwords are just strings sequential numbers starting with 1. There’s 1234 (#16), 12345 (#20), 1234567 (#8), 12345678 (#3), 123456789 (#6) and the people who just run their finger down the number row with 1234567890 (#13).

For those who want to fulfill their six-character requirement but don’t like to stray too far around the number row, there’s also 123123 at #11. And for the truly lazy, there is 000000 at #25.

The truly un-clever folks go right for the home row, making “qwerty” the fourth most-popular password.

In the wake of the massive data breach of software giant Adobe, a couple new apparently Adobe-specific passwords popped up on the SplashData list — “adobe123″ (#10) and “photoshop” (#15). The fact that these two company-specific passwords made it this high on the list of all leaked passwords goes to show (A) just how huge the Adobe database leak was and (B) just how popular these two passwords are among Adobe users.

SplashData has announced its annual list of the 25 most common passwords found on the Internet. For the first time since SplashData began compiling its annual list, “password” has lost its title as the most common and therefore Worst Password, and two-time runner-up “123456″ took the dubious honor. “Password” fell to #2.

“Seeing passwords like ‘adobe123′ and ‘photoshop’ on this list offers a good reminder not to base your password on the name of the website or application you are accessing,” says Morgan Slain, CEO of SplashData.

A couple of phrases made their way on to this year’s list — “iloveyou” inched up two spots to #9, while “letmein” dropped seven spots from last year to #14. The largest drop on the list — 12 spots — belongs to “trustno1,” which barely made the round-up at #24.

Here is the full list of passwords you should avoid like the plague:

1. 123456

2. password

3. 12345678

4. qwerty

5. abc123

6. 123456789

7. 111111

8. 1234567

9. iloveyou

10. adobe123

11. 123123

12. admin

13. 1234567890

14. letmein

15. photoshop

16. 1234

17. monkey

18. shadow

19. sunshine

20. 12345

21. password1

22. princess

23. azerty

24. trustno1

25. 000000

by Chris Morran via Consumerist