The world's worst passwords 2015: which are the most dangerous?

This new list might make you reconsider your password.

The world’s worst passwords of 2015 have been revealed by security firm SplashData.

We’re still leaving ourselves open to risk from scammers by using weak passwords, and we're not changing our bad habits. In fact, some of the worst offenders have appeared on this list every year since SplashData started compiling it in 2011.

The list is made up using more than two million leaked passwords over the course of the year, mostly from North American and Western European users.

Here are the top 25 – is yours is on the list?

Rank	Password	Change from 2014
1	123456	Unchanged
2	password	Unchanged
3	12345678	Up one place
4	qwerty	Up one place
5	12345	Down two places
6	123456789	Unchanged
7	football	Up three places
8	1234	Down one place
9	1234567	Up two places
10	baseball	Down two places
11	welcome	New
12	1234567890	New
13	abc123	Up one place
14	111111	Up one place
15	1qaz2wsx	New
16	dragon	Down seven places
17	master	Up two places
18	monkey	Down six places
19	letmein	Down six places
20	login	New
21	princess	New
22	qwertyuiop	New
23	solo	New
24	passw0rd	New
25	starwars	New

As you can see, ‘123456’ and ‘password’ are still the most commonly used, unchanged from 2014.

The fact that some passwords were longer doesn’t matter: many of them are based on patterns so are easy for scammers to guess. Sports are popular, but there’s been a surge in Star Wars-themed passwords, no doubt due to the release of The Force Awakens, with ‘princess’, ‘solo’ and ‘starwars’ appearing in 21st, 23rd and 25th place respectively.

How to create a safer password

SplashData offers some top tips to help you create a safer password.

Use passwords containing 12 characters or more, with a combination of capital and small case letters as well as numbers and punctuation marks.
Avoid using the same passwords on different websites.
Use a password manager to organise and protect passwords, generate random passwords and automatically log into websites.
Avoid modern pop culture and sports references as well as swear words.

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