Is your password “123456” or “ninja”? Here’s why you should change it

SplashData, a password management applications producer, has listed the 25 worst and scariest passwords used. According to the site, “password”, “123456” and “12345678” still top the list from last year as the most common passwords used on the internet, but new to the list is “Jesus”, “ninja”, “mustang” and believe it or not “password1.”

Users “of any of these passwords are most likely to be victims in future breaches,” the company says. Millions of password were posted online by hackers and helped put together the list. The list of 25 was released with Halloween as a peg.

SplashData CEO Morgan Slain said in a statement: “At this time of year, people enjoy focusing on scary costumes, movies and decorations, but those who have been through it can tell you how terrifying it is to have your identity stolen because of a hacked password. Even though each year hacking tools get more sophisticated, thieves still tend to prefer easy targets. Just a little bit more effort in choosing better passwords will go a long way toward making you safer online”

The 2012 list with its 2011 ranking next to it, is as follows:

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)

Image: SplashData