SplashData has released their list of the 25 worst passwords of 2011. Of course, you should know exactly what they’re talking about. Those six digits or so that you plug in whenever you want to access your bank account, your email, and all the stuff that’s really important to you so Skynet won’t be able to steal your identity and then make Terminators in the year 2152. Whatever. You can’t stop Skynet. Silly humans. Anyway, in your valiant attempt to control sentient robots, there is a list of passwords an infant in Albuquerque could crack, so maybe you shouldn’t use them.
Basically what SplashData says is even though citizens are “encouraged to select secure, strong passwords, many people continue to choose weak, easy-to-guess ones, placing themselves at risk from fraud and identity theft.” Yawr, so what they’re really saying is you know that super, duper, extra secret word or group of numbers you think is like CIA proof or something, well, yeah, you wouldn’t even need a bowl of Alpha-Bits to figure it out, and probably some hacker is stealing all your money right now! Really, like right now you should probably check your online accounts — but that’s after you change your stupid, easy password that 9 billion people already know.
However, it’s really not your fault. We know, there’s just so much floating around in that head of yours. There’s like forty thousand numbers — stupid email requests from your boss, and excuses your spouse made for why his socks are on the bathroom floor — floating around in your brain at any given time. There’s just no way you can fit in a complicated password on top of all the crap that’s littering up your mind on a daily basis. After all, you have to keep information like your ex-boyfriend’s phone number from when you were both in middle school in your memory bank like some sort of synaptic trash bin. There’s just no more room!
Huffpost reports that on average we have about 25 password variations and we use 8 of them per day. Be prepared to slap yourself in the cerebral cortex if you recognize any of the no-no ones below.
1. password (You deserve to be cloned by Skynet.)
2. 123456 (See Above)
3. 12345678 ( No! This is not better than 123456!)
4. qwerty (Probably all Blackberry users.)
5. abc123 (The “ABC” truly stumped us all.)
6. monkey (Strange. What are all these people thinking? I’d have gone with “lemur”)
7. 1234567 (Sheesh.)
8. letmein (Sure! So I can stealyourcreditcardnumber)
9. trustno1 (The National Treasure Nic Cage of passwords.)
10. dragon (RAWR! is just as effective.)
11. baseball (You are five.)
12. 111111 (Okay. You should really be slapped…hard)
13. iloveyou (You Disney goofball. Get a real password.)
14. master ( “key” or “lock” is probably one of your other seven passwords.)
15. sunshine (This is an optimistic outlook for a horrible password. Probably should have gone with “Cloudy with a chance of sleet. Or Tsunami!”)
16. ashley (See below)
17. bailey (Lolwut? Hilarious that “ashley” and “bailey” are specifically on this list. What about “Riley, or Ripley, or Brandon, or Brett, or Logan?” )
18. passw0rd (Skynet isn’t fooled.)
19. shadow (wind, ghost, vampire…”I pray thee dark arts, let no Home Shopping Network addict find me.”)
20. 123123 (The Algebra of number choice.)
21. 654321 (Backwards! You sneaky bastard!)
22. superman (Obviously not.)
23. qazwsx (C’mon this seems pretty good…until you realize where it’s located on the keyboard. This is lazy disguised as clever. 5pts for effort.)
24. michael (Well, Jesus is just offended.)
25. football (You are six.)
Feeling silly? Great! Here’s what SplashData recommends:
Use a variety of letters, numbers and symbols. Change them every six months. Don’t use the same one for every account, and know that even a slight variation makes a difference. Avoid using real words.
Here’s a Daily Finance tidbit, “hackers use “dictionary attacks” that make it easy for them to crack passwords that are words or sequential numbers.” So, you know, don’t do that either.
Did you change everything? Fantastic! Don’t do any of the above silliness again. You’ve been warned.
