These Common Passwords Could Compromise Your Business

While there are plenty of excellent cybersecurity practices to follow, perhaps one of the top tips to keep in mind is to always use unique, difficult-to-guess passwords for all of your accounts. Of course, it’s tempting to use a password that’s easy to remember, especially when you have accounts on so many websites. You might feel inclined to stick with one classic password you use over and over again. Don’t do it.

As it does every year, NordPass put together a list of the top 200 most hacked passwords, based on over four terabytes of data from 35 countries. These poor souls lost their data and privacy, all because they were using passwords like:

1. 123456

2. admin

3. 12345678

4. 123456789

5. 1234

6. 12345

7. password

8. 123

9. Aa123456

10. 1234567890

This is unacceptable. These passwords are so easy to guess, whether by a computer or a human attacker, that your accounts could be on the chopping block within seconds. And if you reuse passwords like this, your other accounts are immediately at risk. Remember the two golden rules here; always use unique, strong passwords that are hard to guess, and save those passwords in a secure password manager.

Make sure you check out the full list of common passwords compiled by NordPass. You can sort by all countries, or by specific countries. The fifth most common password in the United States, for example, is UNKNOWN. That one won’t be so unknown anymore.