'Password' Remains At Top of Bad Password List for 2012
By technology editor Ian Bush
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- "Password" is not a good password. But for some reason, it's still the most popular choice.
"123456" and "abc123" are similar poor choices that persist in the Top 5 of the year's worst computer passwords.
There's also "111111," "monkey," "dragon," even "baseball" in the Top 10.
Morgan Slain, president of the computer security firm SplashData, says new on his firm's list of lamentable logins this year are "Jesus," "ninja," "welcome," "mustang," and the groundbreaking "password1."
And now, more than ever, he says, strong passwords are important.
"This year in particular there were a number of well-publicized hacks on some major sites, including Yahoo, eHarmony, and LinkedIn," he notes. " By using these simple, easy-to-guess passwords, you really are putting yourself at risk."
He suggests using pass phrases -- strings of words linked by dashes or underscores.
"It's like that old story about meeting a bear in the woods -- you don't have to run faster than the bear, you just have to run faster than the other hiker you're with. In this case, your password just needs to be a little bit better than these worst ones."
To aid your memory (and to log in for you) when using different passwords across different sites, SplashData -- with their "SplashID Safe" product -- offers one of many credential management apps available for mobile and desktop.
Here's the full list of bad passwords for 2012, which Slain says his company compiles by tracking hacker "get" lists.
1. password (unchanged from last year)
2. 123456 (unchanged)
3. 12345678 (unchanged)
4. abc123 (up 1)
5. qwerty (down 1)
6. monkey (unchanged)
7. letmein (up 1)
8. dragon (up 2)
9. 111111 (up 3)
10. baseball (up 1)
11. iloveyou (up 2)
12. trustno1 (down 3)
13. 1234567 (down 6)
14. sunshine (up 1)
15. master (down 1)
16. 123123 (up 4)
17. welcome (new on list)
18. shadow (up 1)
19. ashley (down 3)
20. football (up 5)
21. jesus (new)
22. michael (up 2)
23. ninja (new)
24. mustang (new)
25. password1 (new)
