During the first six months of 2019, more than 4 billion records were exposed by data breaches. That's a shocking statistic that's made even more so when you realize that passwords were included in droves. On December 4, a security researcher discovered a treasure trove of more than a billion plain-text passwords in an unsecured online database.
Now researchers at NordPass, a password manager from the people who are behind the NordVPN app, have set about ranking the most used and least secure passwords. Armed with a database of some 500 million passwords leaked as a result of data breaches in 2019, NordPass researchers were able to rank them in order of usage.
500 of the Worst Passwords Ever
The top three most commonly used passwords, notching up 6,348,704 appearances between them, are shockingly insecure, weak, and totally predictable. However, there are also many unexpected passwords on the list and that's the worrying thing. Well, worrying if you happen to be using any of them, that is. If a password you use is on the list, then your security posture has just been weakened. Hackers can brute-force their way into accounts by throwing known common passwords, as well as dictionary words, at them. If you use the same password across multiple sites and services, then your security posture is so bad you urgently need to see a cyber-chiropractor. As I reported on December 6, Microsoft analyzed a database of 3 billion leaked credentials from security breaches and found that more than 44 million Microsoft accounts were using passwords that had already been compromised elsewhere. Password reuse is a sure-fire way to get yourself, your accounts and your data into trouble, especially if you are using one of the world's worst passwords.
You can find the full listing of the world's worst passwords, together with usage statistics, in the NordPass report. Here are just the top 100 worst passwords. If any of them look at all familiar, go and change the respective account login credentials immediately.
I have been covering topics related to the cyber threat landscape for more than a decade. My strong track record as an investigative journalist and a combo of malware analysis and threat intelligence skills help me generate materials that fit the present-day cybersecurity context. Several hundred security-related websites published my articles where I shared news, opinions, and tips on all things security. My portfolio additionally includes dozens of software reviews, numerous step-by-step tutorials on how to recover from ransomware attacks, and hands-on articles highlighting threat mitigation best practices.
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The Worst Passwords List is an annual list of the 25 most common passwords from each year as produced by internet security firm SplashData.[4] Since 2011, the firm has published the list based on data examined from millions of passwords leaked in data breaches, mostly in North America and Western Europe, over each year. In the 2016 edition, the 25 most common passwords made up more than 10% of the surveyed passwords, with the most common password of 2016, "123456", making up 4%.[5]
One has to admit it is hard keeping up with passwords, I have so many online accounts that I have to write down passwords. I also have a system where I use one password and each site has a variation to that one password. This way the chances I forget it are pretty small.
Darice is a web developer who likes reading, watching TV shows, taking the occasional photos and play a tennis game now and then. Darice has been blogging on her own weblog since 2003 and joined Forever Geek in January 2010. When not coding, writing or reading she can be found in the kitchen cooking. Read more of Ms's articles
Yahoo urged users to change their passwords if they haven't since 2014. The company has 1 billion monthly active users for all its internet services, which span finance, online shopping and fantasy football. Its mail service alone has about 225 million monthly active users, Yahoo told CNET in June.
The hack serves as a reminder of how widespread hacking is and highlights the vulnerability of passwords. Cybersecurity specialists recommend using a different password for each account you have on the internet. Other experts are working on alternatives to passwords, such as biometrics like your fingerprint or retina.
"Cybercriminals know that consumers use the same passwords across websites and applications, which is why these millions of leaked password credentials are so useful for perpetuating fraud," said Brett McDowell, executive director of the FIDO Alliance, an organization that vets the security of password alternatives. "We need to take that ability away from criminals, and the only way to do that is to stop relying on passwords altogether."
"We typically see a 0.1 percent to 2 percent log-in success rate from credential stuffing attacks, meaning that a cybercriminal using 500 million passwords to attempt to take over accounts on another website would be able to take over tens of thousands of accounts on most websites," said Shuman Ghosemajumder, Google's former click-fraud czar and CTO of Shape Security.
It will take Yahoo at least several months before it starts regaining users' trust, according to research from Alertsec. The encryption provider did a study that found about 97 percent of Americans lose trust in companies like Yahoo after massive data breaches.
On August 1, a hacker named "Peace" claimed to have breached 200 million Yahoo usernames and passwords from a hack in 2012, and offered to sell them on the dark web after trying to do the same with MySpace and LinkedIn accounts.
Rarely a day goes by when another high-profile provider is compromised due to weak or insecure passwords. To date over 1.2 Billion account passwords have been leaked to the internet for use by hackers and script-kiddies. The saddest thing is that the vast majority of these passwords consist of, or contain, the same 500 phrases. As such, our system blocks the use of any kind of variation of these passwords. New passwords must not contain or consist of a variation of the following 500 most commonly used passwords:
For a password to be truly effective it should neither contain a name or a word found in a dictionary (in any language). It should be a randomly chosen series of letters (of Mixed Case), numbers, and symbols. For help with choosing a secure password see -center/guide-to-creating-strong-passwords. It is important, both to protect yourself, as well as to protect the integrity of the Hosting Services you share, to use strong and secure passwords.
The list is created using data from more than five million passwords that were leaked by hackers in 2017. As SplashData notes, the past two years have been particularly devastating for data security, with a number of well-publicized hacks (Equifax, Dropbox, and the SEC to name a few), attacks, ransoms, and even extortion attempts.
This list isn't taken from a single source. All appear on a list of the 20 passwords most commonly found in dark-web lists compiled from data breaches, per Lookout via a recent CNBC article (opens in new tab). They're also on NordPass's list of 2021's 200 most common passwords (opens in new tab) and its 2020 list as well. You can also find them on CyberNews's top 10 list of 2022 (opens in new tab).
Going back further, the same passwords appear on a massive password list compiled by security researcher Ata Hakçıl in mid-2020, a somewhat smaller list put together in 2019 by the U.K.'s National Cyber Security Centre and HaveIBeenPwned.com (opens in new tab) and Keeper Security's list of 2016's 25 most common passwords (opens in new tab). Most are on SplashData's lists of the 25 most common passwords from 2011 through 2019 (opens in new tab). 2ff7e9595c
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