Keeper, a password management firm based in Chicago, looked at 10 million passwords that became public through data breaches last year.
Four of the top 10 passwords on the list are six characters or shorter, meaning cracking software and hardware can easily unscramble them in just a few seconds.
And it seems that people are big fans of using obvious number sequences as their passwords, with 123456, 1234567, 12345678, 123456789 and 1234567890 all in the top seven.
Passwords like 1q2w3e4r and 123qwe indicate that some users are attempting to use unpredictable patterns to secure their passwords.
But Keeper says:
‘Their efforts are weak at best.
‘Dictionary-based password crackers know to look for sequential key variations. At best, it sets them back only a few seconds.’
Some of the passwords in the top list are surprising, and appear to be random, such as 18atcskd2w and 3rjs1la7qe.
But Graham Cluley, a security expert at the State of Security, believes that these passwords indicate that bots regularly use these codes when they set up fake accounts on public email services for spam or phishing attacks.
Keeper added: ‘Email providers could do everyone a favour by flagging this kind of repetition and reporting the guilty parties.’
See the list below:
THE MOST COMMON PASSWORDS
Ranking Password
1 123456
2 123456789
3 qwerty
4 12345678
5 111111
6 1234567890
7 1234567
8 password
9 123123
10 987654321
11 qwertyuiop
12 mynoob
13 123321
14 666666
15 18atcskd2w
16 7777777
17 1q2w3e4r
18 654321
19 555555
20 3rjs1la7qe
21 google
22 1q2w3e4r5t
23 123qwe
24 zxcvbnm
25 1q2w3
