Justsaver

That’s right folks, if you have 123456 as your password you should say goodbye to your accounts because it’s the first one hackers try when brute forcing your account.

Recently, a very popular internet forum, phpbb.com, was hacked and over 20,000 usernames and passwords were stolen. The hacker then released the passwords to the public, giving us an inside view to what kind of ridiculously easy passwords people use. If you use any of the following passwords, I highly recommend you change them asap. (or lose your accounts, either way)

So as you now know from the title, the most popular password is 123456. This one really surprised me because I never thought of using it before. My guess is that since this password works for sites that require at least one number in the password as well as the sites that do not, 123456 has benefits and is therefore more prolific then its letter counterparts.

Continue reading for the top 20 most used passwords.

Here are the rest of the top 20 most popular passwords: (listed in the order of most popular AKA most stolen)

password (come on folks, try harder)
phpbb (name of the forum the passwords are from, typical “site name” password)
qwerty (try harder)
12345 (what’s with the lack of trying in here)
12345678 (well at least you got to your second middle finger, good for you)
letmein (that’s what he said?)
1234 (ugh they just keep getting shorter. that’s what she said)
test (hacker: let’s test this… I’m in)
123 (ran out of jokes)
trustno1 (password used in the X-Files)
dragon
abc123
123456789
111111
hello (typical programmer’s password)
monkey
master
killer
123123

Amazing list of failure right? I wonder how many people use 1234 as their pin number. Raise your hand, don’t lie.

The only password on that list that I admit to using or thinking of using is hello. And that’s usually for accounts I make for other people.

Here are some more interesting stats about the passwords.

16% of the passwords matched a person’s first name. It didn’t have to be the user’s first name, just a first name in general. The most popular names: Joshua, Michael, Charlie, and Thomas. Joshua was the password to the computer in the movie WarGames, which is probably why it’s first. As for so many passwords being a name; no shock here. I’ve often used first names as passwords.

14% of passwords were keyboard patterns. This area included: 1, 123, abc123, 1234, 123456, 12345678, qwerty, asdf, 1qaz2wsx, 1q2w3e, 159357.

4% were variations of the word password. These were: password, passw0rd, password1, passwd, and drowssap. (password spelled backward) 4% is a lot if you consider that this 4% is dedicated around one word.

4% of passwords were words or items around the computer. Passwords here include: samsung, dell, packard, apple, pavilion, presario, compaq, mouse, keyboard, cocacola. Mmm, sugar and the computer, they go hand in hand.

5% were pop culture words (tv characters, tv shows, movies, movie characters, singers, etc)

3% were emo words (swear words, ihateyou, iloveyou)

3% were don’t care words (whatever, nothing, dontcare, whocares)

Most popular length for a password: 6 characters leading with 35% of all passwords being exactly 6 characters long. 4, 5, 7, 8 character passwords all followed behind with 12%-15% each.

What to take away from this? Don’t use any of the passwords listed here, don’t use any variations of these passwords, don’t use a 6 letter password, and including at least one symbol (!@$%^&*) in your password will most likely make your password uncrackable by brute force.

*I didn’t put # in there because many people use #1 in their password if the password requires at least one number and one symbol. Examples: Jesus#1, Michael#1, Mom#1, Dad#1. The perfect everything passwords because they contain a capital, a number, a symbol, and a undercase.

For passwords that require at least one number and no symbols, people simply appended a 1 to their normal password. Slick huh? password1, that definitely make my password safer.

This brings up an interesting story. When girls at clubs don’t really want to give out their phone numbers, they just give out fake ones (yes I’ve been a victim of this.) You go home, feeling good about yourself, and when you call the number, *BE BE BEEP* “This number is not in service. Please try again.” F*CK

Well I’ve figured you girls out. You see, these club girls, they aren’t smart enough to make up a completely new phone number on the spot so they give out their real number, BUT they change the last number. “Oh here’s my number 5-5-5-1-2-3-…. 8. Call me anytime. hehehe.” So all you have to do it go through the 10 possible numbers to find her. Ah ha didn’t know we knew huh?

[via darkreading and whatsmypass]

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