These are not the passwords youre looking for
Disneys Star Wars: The Force Awakens proved to be box office hit with nearly $1.9 billion in worldwide ticket sales and counting since releasing generally on December 18, 2015 (there were limited viewings in select theaters a day before). Thats impressive, the same of which cant be said for the passwords fans of the franchise are using.
Star Wars themed passwords have found their way onto SplashDatas list of the 25 worst passwords of 2015, including "starwars" at No. 25, "solo" at No. 23, and "princess" at No. 21. All three are new additions to the list
"When it comes to movies and pop culture, the Force may be able to protect the Jedi, but it won’t secure users who choose popular Star Wars terms such as "starwars," "solo," and "princess" as their passwords," SplashData said.
SplashData compiled its fifth annual list from over 2 million leaked passwords during the past year. Some of the new ones are longer than what the firm typically sees, potentially indicating that websites and web users are trying to be more secure.
"We have seen an effort by many people to be more secure by adding characters to passwords, but if these longer passwords are based on simple patterns they will put you in just as much risk of having your identity stolen by hackers," said Morgan Slain, CEO of SplashData. "As we see on the list, using common sports and pop culture terms is also a bad idea. We hope that with more publicity about how risky it is to use weak passwords, more people will take steps to strengthen their passwords and, most importantly, use different passwords for different websites."
Heres a look at the full list:
- 123456 (unchanged from 2014)
- password (unchanged)
- 12345678 (Up 1)
- qwerty (Up 1)
- 12345 (Down 2)
- 123456789 (Unchanged)
- football (Up 3)
- 1234 (Down 1)
- 1234567 (Up 2)
- baseball (Down 2)
- welcome (New)
- 1234567890 (New)
- abc123 (Up 1)
- 111111 (Up 1)
- 1qaz2wsx (New)
- dragon (Down 7)
- master (Up 2)
- monkey (Down 6)
- letmein (Down 6)
- login (New)
- princess (New)
- qwertyuiop (New)
- solo (New)
- passw0rd (New)
- starwars (New)
You have to take these lists with a grain of salt. Its impossible to know how many people are truly relying on dumb passwords like "123456" versus inputting something quick and simple to gain access to locked content.
Still, its a reminder that horrible passwords do still exist, and even the Force cant do anything about it.
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