2021 is set to be a record-breaking year for cyber-attacks and data breaches. The previous record was held by 2017. So far, 2021 has had only 238 breaches less than the entirety of 2017.
It’s more important now than ever to protect your accounts with safe, strong passwords. Unfortunately, many people still use very common passwords that even novice hackers can break.
For your safety, we’ve compiled a list of the top 100 most common passwords of 2021. Check to see if your password made the list.
If it did, don’t panic. We’ll teach you how to generate stronger passwords to increase your account security.
How Did We Get This Data?
Passwords are supposed to be private. The only people who should know your passwords are you and close family members who have to access your accounts.
So how did we figure out what the top 100 passwords of 2021 are?
We started by collecting data from publicly leaked data breaches. This included the Compilation of Many Breaches, Collections #1-5, and other well-known databases.
Then, we anonymized the data and detached the passwords to examine them in isolation. In total, we analyzed over 15 billion passwords, of which 2 billion were unique, only occurring once in the entire data set. We then calculated which passwords appeared most frequently and ranked them based on how many times they occurred.
Thus, we arrived at our list of the 100 most common passwords of 2021.
Data Insights
There were several interesting things that we discovered about the ways that people create a password. When someone makes a new password, they are likely to base it on their favorite cities, foods, or sports teams. Curse words are also popular choices.
Many websites require passwords to contain a combination of letters and numbers. Most people formulate passwords by using a word associated with one of the above categories, and then a number that is significant to them. Common number selections include birthdays, graduation years, and anniversaries.
These choices can be easy to remember, but ultimately make for weak passwords. It’s smart to avoid including any personal information in your password. If a hacker could figure out any piece of your password from looking at your Facebook profile, it shouldn’t be included.
Many of the passwords on our top 100 list contain number combinations that are easy to remember. 123456 and 123456789 are the top two most used passwords of 2021.
Other common passwords are those that contain popular names. Ashley, Nicole, Michael, Jessica, and Hannah are all on our list.
It’s also common to see passwords comprised of strings of letters that form a horizontal line on a keyboard. Qwerty, asdfjkl, and qwertyuiop made the list as well.
And finally, the most obvious of all, “password” is the fourth most popular password of 2021.
The 100 Most Common Passwords
Unfortunately, the top passwords of 2021 are much the same as those collected from studies that occurred in previous years. People are still making the same mistakes, choosing passwords so obvious that even novice hackers can decode them.
Check this list to see if your password made the top 100. If it did, it’s time to take some serious cyber security measures.
- 123456
- 123456789
- qwerty
- password
- 1234567
- 12345678
- 12345
- iloveyou
- 111111
- 123123
- 1234567890
- 1234567
- Aa123456.
- asdfjkl;
- 1234
- abc123
- 111111
- 123123
- dubsmash
- test
- princess
- qwertyuiop
- sunshine
- BvtTest123
- 11111
- ashley
- 00000
- 000000
- password1
- monkey
- livetest
- 55555
- soccer
- charlie
- asdfghjkl
- 654321
- family
- michael
- 123321
- football
- baseball
- q1w2e3r4t5y6
- nicole
- jessica
- purple
- shadow
- hannah
- chocolate
- michelle
- daniel
- maggie
- qwerty123
- hello
- 112233
- jordan
- tigger
- 666666
- 987654321
- superman
- 12345678910
- summer
- 1q2w3e4r5t
- fitness
- bailey
- zxcvbnm
- fuckyou
- 121212
- buster
- butterfly
- dragon
- jennifer
- amanda
- justin
- cookie
- basketball
- shopping
- pepper
- joshua
- hunter
- ginger
- matthew
- abcd1234
- taylor
- samantha
- whatever
- andrew
- 1qaz2wsx3edc
- thomas
- jasmine
- animoto
- madison
- 0987654321
- 54321
- flower
- Password
- maria
- babygirl
- lovely
- sophie
- Chegg123
What to Do if Your Password Made the List
If you’ve made one of these password mistakes and ended up on our list, don’t panic. Now that you know, you can start changing your passwords to more secure options.
Now, we’ll teach you our best security practices for creating safe passwords, so that you can increase your account security.
First, the longer your password is, the stronger it is. Make sure that all of your passwords contain at least eight characters. Try to make them longer, if you can.
The reason that longer passwords are stronger is that many hackers use algorithms. The more characters that the algorithm has to decode, the longer it takes to do. A 15 character password takes much longer to break than a 6 character one.
Make sure that you never include any personal information in your password. Avoid using the name of someone in your family, the name of your pet, numbers associated with your birthday or graduation year, phone numbers, and social security numbers. You should also avoid references to media, sports, or hobbies that you enjoy.
Unfortunately, the most secure passwords are complex and hard to remember. That’s where password managers can help.
This software saves your passwords within its secure database. Whenever you go to log in, the password manager will automatically fill your password in for you. Plus, securing your passwords with a password manager is significantly safer than using a browser, or jotting them down in a text file.
Secure Your Accounts Today
Hacking, security breaches, and data leaks become more frequent every day. It’s more important now than ever to secure your account information and passwords.
At Log Me Once, we’re here to make sure that your personal information stays safe. If you found yourself on our list of the 100 most common passwords of 2021, it’s time to secure your accounts. Get started by downloading our password manager today.