A list of some of the worst passwords for 2019 revealed that users continue to turn to “123456” above all of the other ill-advised combinations.

In total, TeamsID published 50 of the worst passwords used during the past year. The top 15 of these are presented below:

  1. 123456
  2. 123456789
  3. qwerty
  4. password
  5. 1234567
  6. 12345678
  7. 12345
  8. iloveyou
  9. 111111
  10. 123123
  11. abc123
  12. qwerty123
  13. 1q2w3e4r
  14. admin
  15. qwertyuiop

It’s not surprising that “123456” again found its way at the top and that it was directly followed by “123456789,” a slightly longer variant. In this year’s list, “qwerty” and “password” separated “123456” and “123456789” from three similar numerical variants: “1234567,” “12345678” and “12345.” After that, familiar alphanumeric combinations like “abc123” and “1q2w3e4r” made their appearance.

This list is more or less consistent with the round-ups published by SplashData back in 2016 and 2017. (The founders of TeamsID ultimately used their 15 years’ worth of experience at SplashData to build their new Silicon Valley-based startup.) TeamsID’s findings are also not unlike those reported by the United Kingdom’s National Cyber Security Centre back in April 2019.

In a quotation provided to TeamsID for its list, Forbes explained that the realities of the digital age are forcing users to remember more and more passwords, a factor which could be driving people to use passwords that are known to be weak:

Taking care of more things online has made life easier, whether it’s reordering paper towels or viewing the results of medical tests. But many of the added conveniences we’ve grown accustomed to come with their own annoyance: another password to remember.

Remembering each and every password is easier said than done, however. In its “Password Usage Study,” for instance, HYPR found that 78 percent of full-time workers across North America required a password reset after forgetting a personal (Read more...)