The Top 25 Worst Passwords

Whether you work in an office or in the home, passwords are fact of life. Every credit card, online service, computer and alarm system requires a password. When I reviewed my password list, I had over 25 services of some sort or another that requires a password. How can anyone manage so many (keep a list – somewhere safe). Alternately, you can have one or two passwords that you use everywhere, but there are risks with that too.

For the purposes of this article, “worst” means the most common, and not awful on some other subjective or objective criteria. Common passwords allow hackers to get into your accounts, even if they know very little about you.

Without any more blah blah, here is the list:

1. password
2. 123456
3. 12345678
4. qwerty
5. abc123
6. monkey
7. 1234567
8. letmein
9. trustno1
10. dragon
11. baseball
12. 111111
13. iloveyou
14. master
15. sunshine
16. ashley
17. bailey
18. passw0rd
19. shadow
20. 123123
21. 654321
22. superman
23. qazwsx
24. Michael
25. Football

Now that you may have seen one or two of your passwords in this list, what should you do? This newsletter does not give advice that you should take without thinking about it or seeking professional advice, but if your password is “password”, this newsletter is willing to risk the liability and suggests that you change it!

Here are some suggestions to help you set a strong password…
• Do: make your passwords at least eight characters
• Do: use a variety of letters (capital and lowercase), numbers, or special characters (#, $, *, etc…) when possible.
• Don’t: use the same username/password combination on multiple sites.

If you are an online shopper who puts your credit card online on multiple sites, you will need to pay attention to this article! Hackers can get into your social media accounts and make silly or embarrassing statements, but many people are quite understanding when that happens. Having your personal information stolen, your bank account cleaned out and your credit history damaged is not so easy to overcome.
Take care of your passwords, and they will take care of you!

From the Vertical Response blog found at http://blog.verticalresponse.com/verticalresponse_blog/2011/12/good-password-good-idea.html


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