A list of some of the worst passwords for 2019 revealed that users continue to turn to "123456" above all of the other ill-advised combinations. In total, TeamsID published 50 of the worst passwords used during the past year. The top 15 of these are presented below:
- 123456
- 123456789
- qwerty
- password
- 1234567
- 12345678
- 12345
- iloveyou
- 111111
- 123123
- abc123
- qwerty123
- 1q2w3e4r
- admin
- qwertyuiop
It's not surprising that "123456" again found its way at the top and that it was directly followed by "123456789," a slightly longer variant. In this year's list, "qwerty" and "password" separated "123456" and "123456789" from three similar numerical variants: "1234567," "12345678" and "12345." After that, familiar alphanumeric combinations like "abc123" and "1q2w3e4r" made their appearance. https://vimeo.com/379841023#embed This list is more or less consistent with the round-ups published by SplashData back in 2016 and 2017. (The founders of TeamsID ultimately used their 15 years' worth of experience at SplashData to build their new Silicon Valley-based startup.) TeamsID's findings are also not unlike those reported by the United Kingdom’s National Cyber Security Centre back in April 2019. In a quotation provided to TeamsID for its list, Forbes explained that the realities of the digital age are forcing users to remember more and more passwords, a factor which could be driving people to use passwords that are known to be weak:
Taking care of more things online has made life easier, whether it’s reordering paper towels or viewing the results of medical tests. But many of the added conveniences we’ve grown accustomed to come with their own annoyance: another password to remember.
Remembering each and every password is easier said than done, however. In its “Password Usage Study,” for instance, HYPR found that 78 percent of full-time workers across North America required a password reset after forgetting a personal password in the preceding three months. The rate was slightly lower for work-related resets at 57 percent of survey participants. These findings all point to the fact that memory is not a sufficient means of password management. Users would be better served by employing password management software that can remember their combinations for them. With a password manager on their side, users can create even stronger passwords that won't place on future iterations of TeamsID's "Worst Passwords" list.
