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The dumbest passwords people still use

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Sh1a-labe0uf
We asked network security experts to tell us which passwords Americans just can't stop using right now, even though they should. Here's what they told us. Yes: A bizarrely high number of Americans are taking the name of a sometimes-troubled actor, moving some characters around, and calling it a password.
"This was cracked from a wordlist," VIPRE Chief Product Officer Usman Choudhary says. "You can bank on pretty much any famous person out there -- actors, celebrities, athletes, you name it -- being in wordlists because people have [them] in their passwords."
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Published: June 20, 2018 -- 14:55 GMT (07:55 PDT)
Photo by: Lionsgate Premiere

Caption by: Leslie Gornstein
Admin
Who on Earth would use "admin" as both a username and password? Well, Equifax, that's who.
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Published: June 20, 2018 -- 14:55 GMT (07:55 PDT)
Photo by: 20th Century Fox

Caption by: Leslie Gornstein
StarWars
Andrew Morris, threat researcher at Endgame, says this one featured prominently in the leaked "Exploit.in" password dump, which contains over 800 million plaintext usernames and passwords presumably cracked from different sources and leaked onto the darknet.
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Published: June 20, 2018 -- 14:55 GMT (07:55 PDT)
Photo by: LucasFilm/Disney

Caption by: Leslie Gornstein
Anything with Jennifer in it
This was another trend unearthed in the "Exploit.in" password dump, along with ...
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Published: June 20, 2018 -- 14:55 GMT (07:55 PDT)
Photo by: 20th Century Fox

Caption by: Leslie Gornstein
Jesus...
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Published: June 20, 2018 -- 14:55 GMT (07:55 PDT)
Photo by: National Geographic

Caption by: Leslie Gornstein
Maggie...
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Published: June 20, 2018 -- 14:55 GMT (07:55 PDT)
Photo by: HBO

Caption by: Leslie Gornstein
...and "TrustNo1."
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Published: June 20, 2018 -- 14:55 GMT (07:55 PDT)
Photo by: Stefan Kunert/Getty Images/iStockphoto

Caption by: Leslie Gornstein
Mynoob
Too many people (World of Warcraft players maybe?) use this one, according to Keeper Security, which analyzed 10 million passwords that were breached in 2016 and shared a list of the top 25 most common ones.
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Published: June 20, 2018 -- 14:55 GMT (07:55 PDT)
Photo by: Blizzard

Caption by: Leslie Gornstein
Ut4luke
Shorthand for "Use the Force, Luke."
"An attacker will be able to guess this one in minutes," says Jason Hong of the Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science. "Anything that has a common pattern is easily breakable."
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Published: June 20, 2018 -- 14:55 GMT (07:55 PDT)
Photo by: LucasFilm/Disney

Caption by: Leslie Gornstein
Superman
Ajit Sancheti, co-founder and CEO of cybersecurity startup Preempt, and his team, created a list of categories for most common passwords they're seeing. A big one: Fictional characters. If you're a fan of Superman, chances are, so are hackers.
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Published: June 20, 2018 -- 14:55 GMT (07:55 PDT)
Photo by: Warner Bros.

Caption by: Leslie Gornstein
Rental148
Maybe it's a reference to the Broadway-musical-turned-movie Rent, or maybe it's just somebody's apartment. Either way, it's a staple in any brute force dictionary these days.
"We're seeing lots of variations on the word 'rent' plus a string of numbers after it," says RJ Gazarek, a security expert at Thycotic. "Helpful hint - a simple word, and a string of numbers, does not make a strong password."
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Published: June 20, 2018 -- 14:55 GMT (07:55 PDT)
Caption by: Leslie Gornstein
ChrisBrown
We can't figure out the logic behind this one. But Sancheti says the name is too frequently used, and way too easy to crack.
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Published: June 20, 2018 -- 14:55 GMT (07:55 PDT)
Photo by: Screen Gems

Caption by: Leslie Gornstein
YourMom
Another password that showed up frequently during the "Exploit.in" password dump, according to Morris. Not clever. Not unique. Not smart to use.
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Published: June 20, 2018 -- 14:55 GMT (07:55 PDT)
Photo by: Paramount Pictures

Caption by: Leslie Gornstein
MyMomIs#1
"This password pattern -- MyMom, MyDad, MySister -- is used widely and included in a lot of brute force dictionaries," Gazarek says.
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Published: June 20, 2018 -- 14:55 GMT (07:55 PDT)
Photo by: CBS

Caption by: Leslie Gornstein
007Bond
Here's another one used in a lot of brute force dictionaries. "007Bond, 007Goldfinger, 007BondGirls... although easy to remember, none of these will keep you safe," Gazarek says.
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Published: June 20, 2018 -- 14:55 GMT (07:55 PDT)
Photo by: MGM/Columbia Pictures

Caption by: Leslie Gornstein
Whatever your cat's name is
Common pet names are easily cracked right now, says Andrew Newman, CEO of Reason Software Company. That goes for popular names such as Smokey or BabyGirl; or less common pet names, such as Keppie (seen here being WAY too complacent about her password).
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Published: June 20, 2018 -- 14:55 GMT (07:55 PDT)
Photo by: Leslie Gornstein for ZDNet

Caption by: Leslie Gornstein
NCC1701D
That's the registry number for the Federation ship Enterprise ... but the call letters for the spanking-new Discovery (NCC-1031) probably aren't much safer.
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Published: June 20, 2018 -- 14:55 GMT (07:55 PDT)
Photo by: Courtesy of CBS Television Studio, CBS

Caption by: Leslie Gornstein
Princess
"These [terms] are all in any password dictionary used by hackers," says Matt Devost, managing director of Accenture Security.
Keep reading for still more terms that are way too popular right now ... both for users and for hackers, according to our security experts.
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Published: June 20, 2018 -- 14:55 GMT (07:55 PDT)
Photo by: Shutterstock/Featureflash Photo Agency

Caption by: Leslie Gornstein
Patriots
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Published: June 20, 2018 -- 14:55 GMT (07:55 PDT)
Photo by: Shutterstock/charnsitr

Caption by: Leslie Gornstein
SpongeBob
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Published: June 20, 2018 -- 14:55 GMT (07:55 PDT)
Photo by: Paramount Pictures

Caption by: Leslie Gornstein
JustinBieber
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Published: June 20, 2018 -- 14:55 GMT (07:55 PDT)
Photo by: Paramount Pictures

Caption by: Leslie Gornstein
Batman
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Published: June 20, 2018 -- 14:55 GMT (07:55 PDT)
Photo by: Fox

Caption by: Leslie Gornstein
"2beornot2be"
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Published: June 20, 2018 -- 14:55 GMT (07:55 PDT)
Photo by: Rank/Universal

Caption by: Leslie Gornstein
Killer
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Published: June 20, 2018 -- 14:55 GMT (07:55 PDT)
Photo by: HBO

Caption by: Leslie Gornstein
Dragon
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Published: June 20, 2018 -- 14:55 GMT (07:55 PDT)
Photo by: HBO

Caption by: Leslie Gornstein
Hellokitty
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Published: June 20, 2018 -- 14:55 GMT (07:55 PDT)
Photo by: CTR/iStock

Caption by: Leslie Gornstein

1 of 26 NEXT PREV

Everybody knows that 12345 is a bad password. But what they're using instead isn't much stronger

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Sh1a-labe0uf

We asked network security experts to tell us which passwords Americans just can't stop using right now, even though they should. Here's what they told us. Yes: A bizarrely high number of Americans are taking the name of a sometimes-troubled actor, moving some characters around, and calling it a password.

"This was cracked from a wordlist," VIPRE Chief Product Officer Usman Choudhary says. "You can bank on pretty much any famous person out there -- actors, celebrities, athletes, you name it -- being in wordlists because people have [them] in their passwords."

Need password help?

Published: June 20, 2018 -- 14:55 GMT (07:55 PDT)

Caption by: Leslie Gornstein

1 of 26 NEXT PREV

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