Guess who: The 25 worst passwords of 2011

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By Kevin McCaney
 

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By Kevin McCaney

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Use of bad, easily guessed passwords has been a complaint of security experts since the dawn of the Web, and little seems to have changed.

It probably won’t surprise you that the most common password used online is “password,” followed by the ever-popular “123456.” It wouldn’t surprise a hacker trying to steal your personal information, either.

Security company SplashData has published its list of the worst passwords of 2011, compiled from millions of stolen passwords that hackers had posted online, according to Daily Finance.

Use of bad, easily guessed passwords has been a complaint of security experts since the dawn of the Web, but little seems to have changed. “Password” and the numbers 1 through 8 — in varying lengths but always in order — litter the list, along with gems such as “qwerty,” “abc123” and even “111111.”

Related stories:

The top 10 awfully bad passwords people use

One more reason why passwords are no darn good

This year, for some reason, words such as “monkey,” “dragon” and “sunshine” also appear, along with common first names “ashley” and “michael.”

Weak passwords can make life easy for hackers looking to get into your bank records and other sensitive information.

The company recommends that users use passwords of eight characters or more, mixing in letters, numbers and special characters when allowed, separate short words with spaces or underscored and don’t use the same user name and password for multiple websites. But  then everybody knows that. Doing it is another story.

Below are SplashData’s 25 worst password of the year.

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. passwOrd

19. shadow

20. 123123

21. 654321

22. superman

23. qazwsx

24. michael

25. football

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