Slashdot Mirror
The Most Popular Passwords Are Still "123456" and "password"
BarbaraHudson writes: The Independent lists the most popular passwords for 2014, and once again, "123456" tops the list, followed by "password" and "12345" at #3 (lots of Spaceballs fans out there?) . "qwerty" still makes the list, but there are some new entries in the top 25, including "superman", "batman", and "696969". The passwords used were mostly from North American and Western European leaks.
My password is ',.pyf, you insensitive clod!
But no Marvel characters?
1) Clearly bad passwords will be the most popular. Some people will blow off security and will pick a bad password.
2) There are no data in the article regarding how frequently these passwords are used.
3) There is no representation of what these passwords are protecting. Maybe these are passwords to something harmless like accounts in some children's game. In which case, who cares?
The data is compiled from leaked passwords in 2014, by password company SplashData.
ok, so it was leaked passwords....but from where? for what reasons? on what devices? I would wager alot of "stock" devices will have simple PWs. and to most people, if it works, it doesnt need to be addressed. Also if PWs are from web pages? what are the pages? because if they are not secure pages (work, banks, personal info) most people simply dont care. I mean to leave comments on damn near any page, you need to register. I know on some pages ive created accts to leave a post and never plan on going back, im sure ive used some weak passwords for those sites.
in the end, without a breakdown of types of accounts / passwords, its a little hard to claim anything based on this data that is worth anything.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
In fairness, it depends on what the passwords were *for*. If it's a bank site... that's bad. If it's some random site that hides content behind a pointless registration wall, '12345' is perfectly fine.
It comes down to 'if this were a door, would I lock it?'
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
Marvel readers are obviously more intelligent. ;p :) )
(or the built-in punctuation of the names just lends itself to passwords... spider-man, ant-man, S.H.I.E.L.D
Actually that last one isn't a bad idea...
I bought a Netgear AC1450-100NAR Dual Band Slim Gigabit Smart WiFi Router.
The instructions specifically state that it would be a bad idea to change the SSID and password. I did anyways, of course, but was surprised to read this advice.
http://ww.amazon.com/gp/produc...
Really. Yes, really.
There are certain accounts that just don't matter. Until the "5-minutes-valid" mail provider existed, I did the same with gmx mail addresses. Create, use, never bother to use it again. Since with more and more services there is no sensible way to "disable" or "close" accounts, well, one more corpse floating in their sea of dead accounts.
For example, I sometimes want to read something on Facebook and they insist that it's only visible to people who hand them their information. And, well, creating a throwaway account for Ivana Beritsh is faster than finding one that already has 12345 as its password...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Since a site with proper hashing, where in theory the actual passwords are unknowable, wouldn't be on the list. And presumably sites with proper security on the back end would have stronger password complexity requirements in the first place, and vice versa. The blame falls more on the bar than the drunkards it serves.
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Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
Evolution of Passwords:
1978:
password
1983: Rule: Don't use 'password', too common.
passgas
1990: Rule: Must contain at least one digit
passgas7
1995: Rule: Must contain mixed case
Passgas7
1999: Rule: Must contain at least one punctuation character
Passgas7&
2004: Rule: Must change every 2 months
Passgas7& ... Passgas8* ... Passgas9( ... Passgas1! ...
2009: Rule: Don't use same punctuation as digit key
Passgas7$ ... Passgas8$ ... Passgas9$ ...
2012: Rule: Don't use incremental digit patterns
Passgas71$ ... Passgas17$ ... Passgas$71 ... Passgas$17 ...
2015: Rule: Must be at least 20 characters long
Passgas711111111111$ ... Passgas177777777777$ ...
2017: Rule: Can't use any patterns guessable by AI
Oh f$ck it, just hack me already, dammit @666
Table-ized A.I.
after reading the article, im still confused as there isnt enough info to really make anything of this
Yep. There is much less to this than meets the eye.
In addition, a list of most common passwords will always have defaults and obvious simple strings as the top candidates, this will never change. What would be more useful to know is whether the relative proportion of passwords fitting this description is declining (I doubt it, but we need to see the data).
Second class citizen of the New Gilded Age
Was that "Trust no one" or "Trust number one"?
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!