Top 10 Worst Passwords of 2012

It’s sad that, even today, lists like this exist.  Unfortunately, security continues to be a major issue for computer users around the world thanks to, not only malware and viruses, but also just plain old lack of understanding by many users.  The biggest problem can be insecure passwords, which account for many of the highest profile hacks that make the news.

Recently the web site Techie Buzz put together the top passwords of 2012 using data from Splash Data.  The results weren’t pretty, with “password” once again topping the list and going along with such favorites as “123456″ and many more easy to hack passwords that nobody should seriously consider using.

You can view the list below, but if you have family or friends who are less than sophisticated computer users then perhaps you should share this information with them.  These are the first passwords used in a basic dictionary attack which can brute force it’s way into an account in mere minutes.  If you are using anything on the list below then please change it now.  Add capital letters, numbers and symbols and, especially, more characters.

#              Password                Change from 2011
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

Aporte: ALAN BUCKINGHAM