As another year comes to a close, a new sleuth of bad passwords comes to light.  In 2016 there were a number of terrible password ideas for account logins, emails, and the like.  In 2017 there is a similar pattern with some of the most commonly used passwords compiled by SplashData.  They compare the 2017 list with their 2016 list of most common passwords by showing which passwords have gone up or down in rank, or have stayed the same.  SplashData comprised it's data by analyzing millions of passwords mostly in Western Europe, and North America.

Many of the passwords comprise of some of the usual "qwerty", and "123456", but there are some new additions to the list of the 25 most common passwords.  The entire list is as shown by Gizmodo reports is shown below:

1. 123456 (Unchanged)

2. Password (Unchanged)

3. 12345678 (Up 1)

4. qwerty (Up 2)

5. 12345 (Down 2)

6. 123456789 (New)

7. letmein (New)

8. 1234567 (Unchanged)

9. football (Down 4)

10. iloveyou (New)

11. admin (Up 4)

12. welcome (Unchanged)

13. monkey (New)

14. login (Down 3)

15. abc123 (Down 1)

16. starwars (New)

17. 123123 (New)

18. dragon (Up 1)

19. passw0rd (Down 1)

20. master (Up 1)

21. hello (New)

22. freedom (New)

23. whatever (New)

24. qazwsx (New)

25. trustno1 (New)

It's understandable to want to make an easy to remember password, and as more services require complex passwords, it only becomes harder to keep track of them all.  That's why we always recommend using software like LastPass to help you.  With LastPass you can generate secure passwords, store all of your passwords securely in a password vault, and have access to all of your passwords through one master password that you can create.

Some key factors we've come up with for making sure your passwords are secure going into 2018 include:

  • Make Sure all passwords are at least 8 characters long
  • Passwords should contain a special character such as: ! , @ , or #
  • Passwords should have at least one upper case character
  • Passwords should be Alphanumeric, both numbers and letters
  • You should have a different password for each site
  • Use a password manager like LastPass

Passwords are important to keeping your data safe, so we encourage everyone to ensure that their passwords are secure, unique, and not easily guessed as the ones seen above.