We are creatures of habit when it comes to updating passwords and changes are difficult.
But it’s 2020, and it might be time to improve the security game, since people still use easy-to-hack passwords such as “123456789,” the word “password,” and “iloveyou,” according to new research.
Out of the 200 worst passwords, “123456” is the most commonly used of 2020, with 2,543,285 people choosing it. But this password takes less than a second to crack, research from NordPass, a password management company shows.
NordPass says that it found little or no difference after comparing the list of the most common passwords of 2020 to that of 2019. This means that despite numerous reminders from cybersecurity experts we have not learned anything.
A third party company specializing in data breach research developed the list of passwords, NordPass said. In total, they looked at a database with 275,699,516 passwords.
Worst passwords of 2020
The top 10 most common passwords were – 123456, 123456789, picture1, password, 12345678, 111111, 123123, 12345, 1234567890, senha. “picture1” and “senha” which means “password” in Portuguese are the new addition to the top 10 this year.
‘1234567′, ‘qwerty’, ‘abc123′, ‘Million2′, ‘000000′, ‘1234′, ‘iloveyou’, ‘aaron431′, ‘password1′, and ‘qqww1122′ are also pretty common.
Research by NordPass confirms what we know. Since it is convenient, people use quick easy-to-remember passwords. But the study shows that the most memorable passwords are also the ones particularly vulnerable to cracking.
Commonly used passwords according to categories were also revealed. This year, ‘aaron431’ was the most commonly used name in passwords with over 90,000 users, while chocolate became the most commonly used food name with 21,409 users. In their passwords, more than 37,000 people used ‘pokemon,’ making it the most widely used entertainment word. On the list of commonly used passwords, ‘iloveyou’ was ranked 17th and first in the category of positive words, with over a million users.
Although ‘onedirection’ (name of a renowned pop band) was 184th on the list last year, NordPass said it did not make it to the list of passwords most widely used in 2020. As per the study, less than half of the passwords, 78 of them, were new to the most popular list in 2020.
Secure your accounts
It is probably time to make a change if your password has found a place on the list.
As NordPass said, try to avoid using dictionary terms, predictable combinations of numbers, or strings of adjacent keyboard combinations. And this should go without saying, but you should not use a password based on any personal information, such as your phone number, birth date or name, under any circumstances.
NordPass recommends changing your passwords every 90 days with a combination of upper and lowercase letters, and creating a different password for each of your accounts.
NordPass
NordPass is a proprietary password manager launched in 2019. It is meant to help its users to organize their passwords and secure notes, keeping them in a single place which is an encrypted password vault. This service comes in both free and premium versions.
