We can say this without being political: “Donald” is not a safe word.
That’s the conclusion from SplashData, a password management company, which just published its annual 100 Worst Passwords of 2018.
The company analyzed five million passwords leaked on the Internet (the good news for you, however, is that they did not analyze leaked passwords from adult websites).
Donald debuted this year at #23 — just ahead of “password1” and behind “aa123456.” Meanwhile, “123456” and “password” repeated as the two worst offenders for the fifth year in a row.
“Using your name or any common name as a password is a dangerous decision,” said Morgan Slain, CEO of SplashData, Inc. “Hackers have great success using celebrity names, terms from pop culture and sports, and simple keyboard patterns to break into accounts online because they know so many people are using those easy-to-remember combinations.”
SplashData estimates that 10% of people have used at least one of their 25 worst passwords.
Need some password help? The company suggests using passphrases of twelve characters or more and using different passwords for every login. Personally, we’re big fans of password managers (shoutout to Dashlane), but you can find more online security tips here and here.
Photo by Kat Stokes on Unsplash
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