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2013’s password statistics push “password” to second position

Good news for those who have “password” as the password for their email address, online accounts, and computers. Your chosen security measure is now a little safer – at least according to a report from the password experts over at Splashdata.

Last year saw the default password for many being pushed into second place. And the new favourite  – 123456 – echoes the internet age’s disdain for typing long, complex passwords. In third place is the slightly-more-secure (by only by mere milliseconds) 12345678. It outranks other gems, like qwerty, abc123, and 123456789 (a new entry in the top 25).

A few curious ones are adobe123 (Password hint: It’ll always need updates), and photoshop. Even Edward Snowden and his NSA-busting antics seem to have influenced password choices: the password that’s seen the biggest drop in popularity, falling 12 places, is trustno1. Indeed.

The data used for the report is real, too. These numbers aren’t from analysts going around asking people what they use, but rather from leaked data. Of the millions of account breaches last year these are the most popular passwords, taken from real people, who made conscious, lazy decisions. It’s worth noting that even these simple passwords could be secured by adding a one or two different letters.

Password security evaluation tool HowSecureIsMyPassword shows that 123456 can be cracked instantly by virtue of it being an extremely common password, but simply adding special characters like §!§ at the end means that it’ll take 37 years to crack (for somebody using a desktop PC). The tip of the day, then, is to not be lazy and choose a proper password. But if you insist, at least spice things up and try not to be predictable.

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