SplashData, a company that provides security applications and services, recently conducted a study to find out. By using data from 5 million leaked passwords from users in North America and Western Europe, the site compiled its annual "Worst Passwords of the Year" list.
The No. 1 most used password was “123456”, followed by “Password.” Those two took the top two spots last year, too.
Third place went to “12345678,” “qwerty” was No. 4 and “12345” was No. 5, which was down two spots from last year.
>> Related: If your password is on this list, you need to change it now
While there were several repeats from 2016, there were also some first time offenders on the round-up. One included “starwars,” which was No. 16 and another was “dragon,” which was No. 18.
So what's the best way to prevent a hack attack? Researchers recommend using a combination of 12 characters with a mix of upper and lowercase letters. They also suggest changing them for various websites.
Take a look below for the 20 worst passwords of 2017.
1. 123456
2. Password
3. 12345678
4. qwerty
5. 12345
6. 123456789
7. letmein
8. 1234567
9. football
10. iloveyou
11. admin
12. welcome
13. monkey
14. login
15. abc123
16. starwars
17. 123123
18. dragon
19. passw0rd
20. maste
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