How secure are your passwords? We’ll if they’re on this list of the The 25 Most Popular Passwords of 2012, then chances are your account has already been compromised. The rankings were created by SplashData who gathered the data from the millions of stolen passwords posted online by hackers in 2012 and ranked them in order of popularity.
1. password (Unchanged)
2. 123456 (Unchanged)
3. 12345678 (Unchanged)
4. abc123 (Up 1)
5. qwerty (Down 1)
6. monkey (Unchanged)
7. letmein (Up 1)
8. dragon (Up 2)
9. 111111 (Up 3)
10. baseball (Up 1)
11. iloveyou (Up 2)
12. trustno1 (Down 3)
13. 1234567 (Down 6)
14. sunshine (Up 1)
15. master (Down 1)
16. 123123 (Up 4)
17. welcome (New)
18. shadow (Up 1)
19. ashley (Down 3)
20. football (Up 5)
21. jesus (New)
22. michael (Up 2)
23. ninja (New)
24. mustang (New)
25. password1 (New)
The best way to secure a password is to use at least 8 characters containing at minimum one UPPER CASE character, a number, and a special character (ie. #$%@). My favourite way of creating a memorable secure password is by creating acronyms out of a favourite quote.
Quote: Only God can judge me! 2Pac Shakur
Password: OGcjm!2S
Almost make sure to change your password at least once a year. Let’s hope your password wasn’t on the list above. [GIZMODO]
