It’s 2016 and you may have thought we’d all be a little older and wiser than this time last year. But as you read this list of 2015's most popular passwords, you will shake your head, mumble unmentionables and reach the firm conclusion that, no, we are in fact all still complete and utter morons.
Every year, SplashData complies a list of the millions of stolen passwords made public throughout the last twelve months, then sorts them in order of popularity. This year the results, based on a total of over 2 million leaked passwords, are not the list of random alpha-numeric characters you might hope for. Rather, they’re a lesson in exactly how not to choose a password.
Yes, “123456" and “password” remain bewilderingly popular.
But anyway, without further ado, here’s the list, direct from Splash Data. Brace yourselves.
1. 123456 (Unchanged)
2. password (Unchanged)
3. 12345678 (Up 1)
4. qwerty (Up 1)
5. 12345 (Down 2)
6. 123456789 (Unchanged)
7. football (Up 3)
8. 1234 (Down 1)
9. 1234567 (Up 2)
10. baseball (Down 2)
11. welcome (New)
12. 1234567890 (New)
13. abc123 (Up 1)
14. 111111 (Up 1)
15. 1qaz2wsx (New)
16. dragon (Down 7)
17. master (Up 2)
18. monkey (Down 6)
19. letmein (Down 6)
20. login (New)
21. princess (New)
22. qwertyuiop (New)
23. solo (New)
24. passw0rd (New)
25. starwars (New)
There are some interesting trends, if you can get beyond the sheer stupidity for a moment. Sports-based passwords are still popular, with “football” and “baseball” both ranking highly, and so are those inspired by a certain blockbuster film, with “starwars” and “solo” making an appearance.
It’s also nice to see the return of “princess,” which dropped out of the Top 25 last year but has made a resurgence, also potentially due to Star Wars. Elsewhere, other new entires—including “welcome,” “login” and “passw0rd”—are just as hackable but far more amusingly dumb.
You can check out the lists from 2013 and 2014 if you don’t hate humanity and the internet enough already.
Now is the point at which we should provide some advice about how to create a strong password. But here’s the best piece of advice we have: let’s all stop being such fucking idiots.
Image by Shutterstock/kpatyhka