See the list of the most used passwords in the world. Maybe your password is on the list? Then it might be time to change it.
Sometimes the simple things in life are the easiest to enjoy. But sometimes the simple things can be quite dangerous. Passwords are one of those things. According to research published by NordPass, people all over the world are really enjoying simplicity when it comes to passwords.
A study of people’s passwords in 50 countries shows a list of the world’s most common passwords. But furthermore, it also shows a huge international it-security threat: 84.5 percent of the passwords in the world are so weak that they can be hacked in less than a single second. You can read more about the study at https://tech.co/news/nordpass-common-passwords-2021.
The 20 most common passwords
Looking at the most popular passwords, there’s a very clear tendency in these passwords. They seem to follow the keyboard. This is obvious when you look at the row of numbers taking both gold, silver, and bronze. But at the 4th place will find a similar pattern with ‘qwerty’. You might wonder, what does this weird word mean? Then look at your keyboard and try to type it. Then you probably have a good idea of why it is such a popular password.
Number 1: 123456 (count: 103 million)
Number 2: 123456789 (count: 46 million)
Number 3: 12345 (count: 33 million)
Number 4: qwerty (count: 22 million)
Number 5: password (count: 20,9 million)
Number 6 12345678 (count: 14,7 million)
Number 7: 111111 (count: 13,4 million)
Number 8: 123123 (count: 10,2 million)
Number 9: 1234567890 (count: 9,6 million)
Number 10: 1234567 (count: 9,4 million)
Number 11: qwerty123 (count: 8,9 million)
Number 12: 000000 (count: 8,4 million)
Number 13: 1q2w3e (count: 8,2 million)
Number 14: aa12345678 (count: 8,1 million)
Number 15: abc123 (count: 7,2 million)
Number 16: password1 (count: 5,8 million)
Number 17: 1234 (count: 5,5 million)
Number 18: qwertyuiop (count: 5,2 million)
Number 19: 123321 (count: 5,2 million)
Number 20: password1 (count: 4,7 million)
Increase the Strength of Your Passwords
This is challenging information in a world where cybersecurity has increasing importance, as more previous offline services are moving into the cloud. Most people wouldn’t protect their home with an old school key like the one in this picture:
Most modern homes will install a more modern lock with a key filled with difficult combinations, that will make it way more advanced to copy the key or break into your house. But the ‘123456’ password is like the old school key pictured above.
A modern password should feature difficult hard-to-crack factors. At https://passwordhero.com/ you can have generated safe passwords that are difficult to crack for hackers. Based on your required length, the generator will give you a randomly generated password. It can feature upper- and lowercase letters, numbers, or symbols if you wish. It can even create passphrases or pin codes for you. Passphrases are passwords made as little sentences. They are difficult to crack but easier for you to remember.
