Here are the passwords you should absolutely avoid at all costs

There are several simple tricks to make passwords more secure – but despite this, many people still choose simple phrases to protect their various accounts on the Internet. The analysis company Splash Data produces annual statistics on which passwords are the worst to use – and, frighteningly, they are still used to a large extent.

Number combinations and simple phrases at the top

At the top we find the somewhat unimaginative combination “123456”, which also topped the previous year’s list. This is followed by “password”, “12345678”, “qwerty” and “12345”. Among the newcomers on the somewhat gloomy list we find, among other things, “login” and “welcome”. In addition, the popular culture phenomenon Star Wars has fought its way in the form of “solo” in place 23 and “starwars” in place 25.

If you use any of these, it is time to start rethinking your password habits. And it’s not enough to write longer passwords – for best results, use lowercase and uppercase letters in combination with numbers and special characters.

“We have seen that many people make an effort with security by adding more characters to the passwords, but if these longer passwords are based on simple patterns, there is still an equal risk of having the identity hijacked by hackers,” writes Splash Data.

The entire list of far too simple passwords you should avoid.

1 – 123456 (-)
2 – password (-)
3 – 12345678 (up one position from last year)
4 – qwerty (up 1 position)
5 – 12345 (down two places)
6 – 123456789 (-)
7 – football (up 3 places)
8 – 1234 (down 1 position)
9 – 1234567 (up 2 places)
10 – baseball (down 2 places)
11 – welcome (new)
12 – 1234567890 (new)
13 – abc123 (up 1 place)
14 – 111111 (up 1 place)
15 – 1qaz2wsx (new)
16 – dragon (down 7 places)
17 – masters (up 2 places)
18 – monkey (down 6 places)
19 – letmein (down 6 places)
20 – login (new)
21 – princess (new)
22 – qwertyuiop (new)
23 – solo (new)
24 – passw0rd (new)
25 – starwars (new)