Here are the top 10 passwords for 2024, and they’re all embarrassing
How do so many people get hacked? Apparently, many of them don’t pay much attention to choosing their passwords, whether for personal or business accounts. This is evident from the sixth yearbook analysis of personal password habits from password manager NordPass in collaboration with threat management software NordStellar.
“Guess what?” asks the introduction to the report. “(Passwords are) still very bad.”
How bad? Bad enough that you’d think Homer Simpson just mashed his hand on a computer keyboard to come up with a password. According to the report, 123456 is the most popular password in the world for both personal and business accounts, used by more than 3 million people for personal accounts and more than 1.2 million for business accounts.
Read more: Best password manager of 2024
“‘123456’ has once again claimed the title of the world’s worst password!” the NordPass analysis reports. “In fact, during this six-year study, it topped the charts as the most common password five out of six times. ‘Password’ had this not so noble title only once.”
Here are the top five passwords for personal accounts, according to the analysis.
- 123456
- 123456789
- 12345678
- password
- qwerty123
And here are the top five for business accounts.
- 123456
- 123456789
- 12345678
- secret
- password
According to the report, it will take less than a second to crack any of these ten passwords.
The company reviewed and analyzed a 2.5 TB database from public sources, including those on the dark web. The data is organized by country of origin, covers 44 countries, and is separated by business and personal data through the use of related email addresses.
Tips for stronger passwords include creating a long password that avoids easily guessed information such as birthdays, names, and common words. Users are not allowed to reuse passwords for different sites. Password managers can also protect passwords without the user having to remember dozens of complex passwords, as they only need one password to log into the password manager itself.
