’1234546’ And ‘Password’ Top 2014’s Worst Passwords List

You see, for the fourth time in a row since SplashData began tracking the most-used weak passwords, "123456" remains the most popular weak password. In second place is "password", while third place goes to “12345.” It doesn't get much better from there, with "football" in tenth place. Ugh.

To come up with this ranking, SplashData compiled a list that consisted of over 3.3 million passwords that were leaked during 2014. It could be argued that a lot of these weak passwords might just be remnants of the past, but the fact that "696969" and "batman" have made an introduction proven that little has gotten better.

As usual, with these findings come some recommendations. An overarching recommendation is to not use a simple password, but beyond that, it's recommended that you keep real words out of it. Sports teams, curse words, simple number patterns, and so forth, are just bad news.

One of the reasons SplashData is behind these investigations is that it offers a password management program that helps people avoid using ridiculously simple passwords. I admit I am not familiar with SplashID, but there are a number of apps like it worth checking out (LastPass and 1Password are notable examples).

With such apps, you'll be able to create very secure passwords -- individual to each service -- and let the app retain them under the protection of strong encryption and a master password. Using a solution like this might seem like a chore, but security shouldn't be looked at that way, and I don't think it's ever a good excuse to say "Well, it's an unimportant service, so the password doesn't matter".

Take some pride in your security, and protect yourself!