The Worst Passwords of the Year

The end of the year is always punctuated by lists. The best and worst of the year. Here is a list that may be important to your digital security. SplashData had released their annual list of the "25 Worst Passwords of the Year."

The top three are the same as last year: "password," "123456," and "12345678."

New to the list this year: "welcome, " "jesus," "ninja," "mustang, " and "password1."

Morgan Slain, SplashData CEO says that "Even though each year hacking tools get more sophisticated, thieves still tend to prefer easy targets,”

Passwords that are at least eight characters long and made-up of mixed characters are the strongest. SplashData, a provider of password management application, puts together the Worst Password list as an effort to encourage people to use stronger passwords.

Here is the full list of “Worst Passwords of 2012”, including their current ranking and any changes from the 2011 list:

1. password (Unchanged)
2, 123456 (Unchanged)
3. 12345678 (Unchanged)
4. abc123 (Up 1)
5. qwerty (Down 1)
6. monkey (Unchanged)
7. letmein (Up 1)
8. dragon (Up 2)
9. 111111 (Up 3)
10. baseball (Up 1)
11. iloveyou (Up 2)
12. trustno1 (Down 3)
13. 1234567 (Down 6)
14. sunshine (Up 1)
15. master (Down 1)
16. 123123 (Up 4)
17. welcome (New)
18. shadow (Up 1)
19. ashley (Down 3)
20. football (Up 5)
21. jesus (New)
22. michael (Up 2)
23. ninja     (New)
24. mustang (New)
25. password1 (New)