The top 10 most insecure passwords

The moment of shock when the password doesn't work!

The problem of insecure passwords on the Internet is a well-known phenomenon. The authorities repeatedly point out how easy it is to crack certain combinations of numbers or letters. What we can easily remember ourselves is also one of the easiest codes to crack.
It is not only private Internet users who tend to use insecure passwords. Even large companies, which actually attach the utmost importance to security, sometimes use unsuitable passwords.

The information technology news website heise.de is known for its serious research. The portal recently reported that the American military may have used the most insecure password of all time between 1962 and 1977. When programming the launch code for the US nuclear missiles, a password was used that had to be entered as quickly as possible in a dangerous situation so that no time was wasted. This was the code 00000000.

For a long time, it was not known which insecure passwords were actually used by the majority of Internet users. There were assumptions about combinations that were particularly easy to remember, such as dates of birth or your own telephone number. The facts became known in October 2013 following the internationally publicized hacker attack on the American software company Adobe Systems Incorporated (Adobe for short). During the attack, the data of almost 150 million customers was hijacked. This customer data also included passwords. The passwords are normally stored by the company in encrypted form. However, a security gap in the software giant's encryption process made the hackers' work easier.

The hackers of Adobe customer data compiled a list of the passwords most frequently used by customers. They published the list on the Internet and thus made the most frequently used insecure combinations visible.

Here are the top 10 most insecure passwords that became known:

No. 1: 123456 - Used almost two million times.
No. 2: 123456789 - Half a million users used this combination.
No. 3: password - Almost 346,000 customers chose this.
No. 4: adobe 123 - The code was used by more than 200,000 users.
No. 5: 12345678 - This password was also favored by a good 200,000 people.
No. 6: qwerty - Over 130,000 customers used this to secure their access account.
No. 7: 1234567 - More than 120,000 customers used this number sequence.
No. 8: 111111 - This simple sequence was chosen by over 110,000 users.
No. 9: photoshop - This seemingly appropriate term for the company was the password of a good 80,000 people.
No. 10: 123123 - Again, more than 80,000 customers chose this combination.

The list of the most common passwords that has become known is not only valid in Germany or Switzerland. It is a global list with international relevance.

If you want to enter a secure password, you should always use a sequence of letters and numbers, as well as upper and lower case letters. Such a code does not guarantee complete security, but it does at least offer a maximum level of protection. Changing your password regularly should also be a matter of course in order to protect your own data as well as possible.