Do you have one of the most common passwords?

by: James Titcomb

If your password is “123456”, “qwerty” or even “password”, it would be a good idea to change it right now.

The three terms are among the most commonly-used passwords of 2015, according to an annual ranking from a security group.

SplashData, which collates passwords from data breaches in America and Western Europe to build samples, said “123456” was, for the fifth year running, the most common password.

Predictably, the most popular passwords are by definition terrible – sequential lines of numbers, “master” and so on. “123456”, “12345678” and “12345” were all in the top five.

But “football”, “monkey” and “starwars” also made the list. Strangely, “football” gained three places last year, at the expense of “baseball”.

Needless to say, if any of the passwords on this list are yours, you should change them. The data shows that at least some people are still failing to heed even the most basic security principles about secure codes.

 via:wallpaperscraft