These are 25 passwords you should not use in 2019

Password-management company, SplashData has revealed the 100 worst passwords of 2018 in its yearly "Worst Passwords of 2018" report.

According to the software company, the purpose of this list is to encourage computer users to use stronger passwords and prove why people should not use them in the new year.

The report comes after Nigerian banks lost about N12 billion to fraud and forgeries (which includes password theft) in the first 6 months of 2018. A CBN report shows that the number of fraud related cases increased by 4,006 compared with 16,762 cases involving N5.52 billion and $ 0.12 million in the corresponding period of 2017.

Morgan Slain, CEO of SplashData, Inc, while commenting on the “worst passwords” report, said, "Our hope by publishing this list each year is to convince people to take steps to protect themselves online."

He added, "It's a real head-scratcher that with all the risks known, and with so many highly publicised hacks such as Marriott and the National Republican Congressional Committee, that people continue putting themselves at such risk year-after-year."

After evaluating over 5 million passwords leaked on the Internet, the company discovered that people all over the world are still using weak, predictable passwords, which makes them at a high risk of being hacked.

Number one on the list of terrible passwords used by most computer users this year is "123456", followed by "password", making 2018 the fifth consecutive year that these passwords have held the top two spots.

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Here is SplashData's top 25 "Worst Passwords of 2018":

123456 (Rank unchanged from last year)
password (Unchanged)
123456789 (Up 3)
12345678 (Down 1)
12345 (Unchanged)
111111 (New)
1234567 (Up 1)
sunshine (New)
qwerty (Down 5)
iloveyou (Unchanged)
princess (New)
admin (Down 1)
welcome (Down 1)
666666 (New)
abc123 (Unchanged)
football (Down 7)
123123 (Unchanged)
monkey (Down 5)
654321 (New)
!@#$%^&* (New)
charlie (New)
aa123456 (New)
donald (New)
password1 (New)
qwerty123 (New)

splashdata's worst password report splashdata's worst password report splashdata

Here are tips to prevent your password from hackers

1. Use passphrases of twelve characters or more with mixed types of characters.

2. Use a different password for each of your logins. That way, if a hacker gets access to one of your passwords, they will not be able to use it to access other sites.

3. Protect your assets and personal identity by using a password manager to organise passwords, generate secure random passwords, and automatically log into websites.

Here are 25 passwords you should not use in 2019

Here is SplashData's top 25 "Worst Passwords of 2018":

Here are tips to prevent your password from hackers

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