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Pro tip: choosing password as your online password is not a good idea. In fact, unless youre hoping to be an easy target for hackers, its the worst password you can possibly choose. Password ranks first on password management application provider SplashDatas annual list of worst internet passwords, which are ordered by how common they are. (Passw0rd, with a numeral zero, isnt much smarter, ranking 18th on the list.)
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The list is somewhat predictable: Sequences of adjacent numbers or letters on the keyboard, such as qwerty and 123456, and popular names, such as ashley and michael, all are common choices. Other common choices, such as monkey and shadow, are harder to explain. My Stories (Personalized) SEE ALSO: HOW TO: Protect Your Companys Passwords
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As some websites have begun to require passwords to include both numbers and letters, it makes sense varied choices, such as abc123 and trustno1, are popular choices. SplashData created the rankings based on millions of stolen passwords posted online by hackers. Here is the complete list: 1. password 2. 123456 3.12345678 4. qwerty 5. abc123 6. monkey 7. 1234567 8. letmein 9. trustno1
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http://mashable.com/2011/11/17/worst-internet-passwords/[09-02-2012 06:15:24]
10. dragon 11. baseball 12. 111111 13. iloveyou 14. master 15. sunshine 16. ashley 17. bailey 18. passw0rd 19. shadow 20. 123123 21. 654321 22. superman 23. qazwsx 24. michael 25. football SplashData CEO Morgan Slain urges businesses and consumers using any password on the list to change them immediately. Hackers can easily break into many accounts just by repeatedly trying common passwords, Slain says. Even though people are encouraged to select secure, strong passwords, many people continue to choose weak, easy-to-guess ones, placing themselves at risk from fraud and identity theft. SEE ALSO: 5 Tools for Keeping Track of Your Passwords The company provided some tips for choosing secure passwords in a statement:
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1. Vary different types of characters in your passwords; include numbers, letters and special characters when possible.
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2. Choose passwords of eight characters or more. Separate short words with spaces or underscores. 3. Dont use the same password and username combination for multiple websites. Use an online password manager to keep track of your different accounts. Are these lists helpful? Do you need to rethink any of your password choices? Let us know in the comments.
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Christian Fredrickson
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Sure, you can encourage people to change their passwords, you can even urge them to back up their computers, but in the end they will always fight for their right to be stupid.
November 18, 2011 Reply
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Social Media Manager Los Angeles, CA - Ucla Manager, Digitial Marketing/Social Media New York, NY - Foot Locker
Laadi Datta
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What are peoples thoughts on using the same password on multiple sites? usually passwords for banking sites are always unique, but for less important sites people use the same password for many.
November 18, 2011 Reply 0
tiivi
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I use 3 levels of passwords and rely on a pattern so when Im forced to change my banking password, I can determine what it is in a few tries. I dont really trust password keeper programs or services. And in the end, most passwords arent stolen individually from people but en masse from the sites you are logging into. There aint squat you can do about that and if you use the same pass everywhere, you are screwed when its stolen from them.
November 18, 2011 2
Jorden Beatty
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I use pretty much the same strategy as TilVl a pattern of about 3 different passwords that vary depending how secure I need them to be. ie: spam email is less secure than, say, Internet banking. Definitely safer to mix it up. And, hey, maybe itll keep your memory in check as you get older. Ha.
http://mashable.com/2011/11/17/worst-internet-passwords/[09-02-2012 06:15:24]
Rakesh_Narang
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There are many people who use these sort of password and call themselves non-geek. Well, in my eyes, they are just ignorant!
November 18, 2011 Reply 1
tony3dsilva
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Lastpass service
November 18, 2011 Reply 3
Ken Wong
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Everyone knows to use strong passwords but many websites still dont allow you to input special characters as part of the password.
November 18, 2011 Reply 8
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Jesse Robinson
If that were the case, there wouldnt be a need for articles such as this one.just consider this: think of the most average person you knowgot em in mind? OK, now realize that around half of the worlds population is dumber than that person.
November 22, 2011 Reply 0
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Joseph Slabaugh
marduk191
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dictionary attack in the open public are sure to use real words with common alpha numerics. All you have to do is make a password that doesnt make a word, use upper and lower case, add some numbers in the mix. Using game codes like uuddlrlrabba is probably bad too lol. There is no need for a 30 character pass, just something 8-13 characters that you can remember or keep safely written somewhere. If you are worried about brute force attacks then use 13 character passes. Anything beyond that is up to the server admins security practice and how many servers the cracker is using to crack it. Never use the same password twice either.
November 18, 2011 Reply 0
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Thepasc
Why dont you explain yourself when you make such an opinionated comment???
November 18, 2011 Reply 6
http://mashable.com/2011/11/17/worst-internet-passwords/[09-02-2012 06:15:24]
ChuckBaggett
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Having unique strong passwords at hundreds of sites is beyond most peoples ability to remember. A security solution that overlooks that is unrealistic to the point of being useless.
November 18, 2011 Reply
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Juno Park
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Darren McKenna
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A dictionary attack isnt very common anymore with people tending to force users to have both numbers and letters. The best way to avoid both a dictionary attack and a brute force attack is to make a long password thats easy to remember, make up a story like the green horse jumped over the fence to remember the password greenhorsejumpfence, a 19 character password of just lower case letters is more secure than an 8 letter password thats random alphanumerics.
November 18, 2011 Reply 3
teedubya
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Jackie Engle
dina595
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Efreak15
tonyisontwtr
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LOLOLOLOL!!!!
November 18, 2011 Reply 0
http://mashable.com/2011/11/17/worst-internet-passwords/[09-02-2012 06:15:24]
Tom Smith
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Manny Luis
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Arushi Sharma
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Eric Johnson
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I would think ihateyou would be used more often than iloveyou LOL!
November 18, 2011 Reply 1
worthbanner
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Its a shame and puzzling that many sites, notably banks, wont allow machine symbols as part of passwords.
November 18, 2011 Reply 1
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Scott Barbour
Banks often use a web front-end to a mainframe-type interface. Mainframes typically use the EBCDIC encoding, which depending on the implementation may or may not have the Latin-1 character set. Additionally, many symbols also double as control codes.
November 22, 2011 Reply 0
leisa i
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Nice to think there are still quite a few x-files fans out there (trustno1 was Mulders password)
November 18, 2011 Reply 1
I_Trezise
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My problem is I use the same password for everything it is nearly impossible to guess but if someone got it they would have the password to my entire internet identity.
November 18, 2011 Reply 1
tiivi
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As security breaches happen at places and passwords are stolen, that is also how they try to get into other accounts by trying the same username password they stole on ebay over at Chase bank. If they get access to your email they can figure out where you do banking or brokerage. The rotating number keyfobs are a cool way to really lock things down but EVEN THEY got tricked into losing the master decoder for all the fobs out there and have to replace them all.
November 18, 2011 Reply 0
http://mashable.com/2011/11/17/worst-internet-passwords/[09-02-2012 06:15:24]
Im the same, my password is unique and personal to me and completely impossible to guess. When one of my accounts got hacked and I had to change my password I just substituted a character for a common vowel and voila! new password.
November 18, 2011 Reply 0
Eric Toribio
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I helped a friend of the family a few months ago with that since he could not log on Hotmail. I made him change the password since it was just numbers. I cant believe people really use only-numbers passwords. Those are detected in milliseconds. This is a must
November 18, 2011 Reply
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Eric Toribio
tiivi
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Doesnt hotmail just auto lock someones account after a few attempts? Letting anyone (thing) scan through a thousand passwords is bad account management.
November 18, 2011 Reply 0
Eric Toribio
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Jackie Engle
Elaine Winter
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I always try to stay away from using birth dates for a password.
November 18, 2011 Reply 0
Hayley Conolly
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Shankar Arunachalam
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Juraj Benak
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http://mashable.com/2011/11/17/worst-internet-passwords/[09-02-2012 06:15:24]
25 Worst Passwords of 2011 my girlfriend has the same username and password on some important websites and then uses it to log on to the internet banking! I almost had a heart attack when I found out! I made her to change all of them immediately. The best password to me is a name of a song. Its long, it has a space (or spaces) and when combined with a capital letter and a number its pretty bulletproof. Try cracking Cant buy me love12 :)
November 18, 2011 Reply 0
Estela Hayward
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Phew. Thank goodness Ive never used any of those. lol or more like wow, Im surprised Ive never used any of those. lol
November 18, 2011 Reply 1
Ruth Cox
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pword advice
November 18, 2011 Reply 0
Kumar Jhuremalani
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Musthafa Ullal
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Yes, we should not ignore the pros and cons of password strongness.
November 18, 2011 Reply 0
Chase Grisham
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http://xkcd.com/936/
November 18, 2011 Reply 0
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gerardo
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shadow is not hard to explain: since Only The Shadow knows. Believe it or not.
November 18, 2011 Reply 0
Nofortee Wu
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if you knew other languages, you can use a word meaning in that language but switch the keyboard to english. for example, (I love you) => cyoiydgTv
November 18, 2011 Reply 1
http://mashable.com/2011/11/17/worst-internet-passwords/[09-02-2012 06:15:24]
Gaurav Sehgal
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One good one is to combine your name with your birthdate usually a difficult one to guess by a hacker
November 18, 2011 Reply 1
Marin Gaidarski
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Rasta Lulz
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loumitch
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thanks for telling me your clients common terrible passwords, Ill be sure to try those first
November 18, 2011 Reply 0
Jarrod Kahn
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Michelle Mears-Gerst
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SHIGGA.com
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Nothing surprising about user behaviour. More surprised that websites actually let you use these in 2011.
November 18, 2011 Reply 0
Bret Knight
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AMENGODGA
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Agli Panci
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http://mashable.com/2011/11/17/worst-internet-passwords/[09-02-2012 06:15:24]
shkurt fare :)
November 18, 2011 Reply 0
Loudell Mirambil
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Shivbhadra Gohil
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Naomi Hasegawa
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qazwsx & passw0rd was a common quick fix back in the dayslol
November 18, 2011 Reply 0
TomLeMartien
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KatieSoze
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great, now all the hackers know the most popular passwords too!
November 18, 2011 Reply 0
Matthew Kirkham
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'Shanrico Balanay
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Will
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Ramon Martinez Jr
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If you find your password on this listtime for you to change it!
http://mashable.com/2011/11/17/worst-internet-passwords/[09-02-2012 06:15:24]
Serenity Rock
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Check out Last Pass. It works over all platforms and it will generate passwords if you prefer.
November 18, 2011 Reply 0
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Madeleine Dawes
My concern with using a password generated by the internet is that it can possibly be REgenerated meaning that someone else can use a generator to randomly put together the same numbers and letters.
November 21, 2011 Reply 0
El Fouad
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Ben
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Steve Joseph
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