Below are the top 5 most commonly used passwords from the year 2020, detailing how many times a password has been used, exposed, and how long it would take to crack. A more detailed list including the top 200 worst passwords for 2020 can be found here.
Password Number of users Time to crack Times
123456 23,597,311 Less than a second 2,543,285
123456789 961,435 Less than a second 7,870,694
picture1 371,612 3 Hours 1,190
password 360,467 Less than a second 3,759,315
12345678 322,187 Less than a second 2,944,615
Most people use simple and easy to remember passwords. The convenience that this brings however comes at a cost, as memorable passwords are much more vulnerable to crack.
So, how can you create stronger, safer, and more secure passwords?
Firstly, the golden rule of passwords; under no circumstances should you include any personal details in your passwords, such as your name, phone number or birthday. A hacker trying to gain access to your account could easily obtain this information and their challenge of trying to get into your account becomes much, much easier.
Dictionary words, strings of adjacent keyboard or number combinations are also a big no, again making the hacker’s job much easier.
Never reuse the same password across multiple accounts. Otherwise, if one password becomes compromised, all of your accounts become at risk. Creating a different password with each different account mitigates this risk.
Although trying to remember tens of complex passwords seems like a daunting task, using a password manager makes this easy and secure. Especially in conjunction with the use of a random password generator, which create passwords that are exponentially more difficult to crack. They use a random mix of upper case and lower case letters, special characters, and numbers, and are much longer than the average password. The generator will create a secure password, the manager will save it, and you can live without worry of exposed passwords.
This is just one example of a common cyber security challenge that everyone faces daily. We also have a test to find out how your employees respond to a different sort of challenge, that of recognising a phishing attack. Find out how your employees fair in our Free Click-Prone® Test today.
