The 2010 and its decade are now over and you will undoubtedly see many retrospectives as we begin a new decade. Some of these are for some laughs and some of these are to show just how far we’ve come (or haven’t come) in a particular area. This is one of them. The password’s days may be numbered but it is still used. The technology itself is over 50 years old and it is at the moment being supplemented by other security measures like Multi-Factor Authentication so it will eventually be no more.
Ten years ago in 2010 the password was king and there was very little else that could be used to secure a digital account. Despite that people have continued to use easy to guess or common passwords and thanks to that it has contributed to numerous data breaches which have put all of our information at risk. It was the same ten years ago, so what were the worst passwords of the past decade?
Where Does This Info Come From?
Most of the information presented comes from SplashData, who have compiled lists of the most commonly used passwords since 2011 and all of it is conveniently found on Wikipedia. For 2010, Symantec compiled a list so the entire decade is covered.
The Worst Of The 2010’s:
So, what was the worst password of the 2010s? Only two different entries held the ignominious spot as the most used password on the net: password and 123456. If you are still using one of these passwords change it now. Do it now! We’ll wait for you….
Among the other commonly found worst passwords were 12345678 (as well as several other variations), qwerty, abc123, 1111111 and letmein. It is easy to see why these passwords would be used. They are easy to type in and easy to remember. Considering everything online today has a password that is required it can be a bit confusing to remember which password you used for which account (of course you could always write them down or use a password manager…).
Others
Names have also made for popular passwords. Michael, amanda, ashley, bailey, chelsea, jordan, jackson, harley, mickey, andrea, edward, charles, brandy, john, james, chris and plenty more have appeared on the lists. Using your name, your spouse’s name or a child’s name is not a good idea. Not only is it easy to guess but it also could provide someone with more information about you.
Other popular passwords on the list are reminiscent of the times. During the decade beginning in 2010 passwords like gandalf, wizard, starwars and solo were popular. Others like princess, dragon, superman and batman have also made appearances on the list. Of course sports has also been a common password with football cracking the top 25 nearly every year and several team names like viking, cowboy and eagle also making appearances. Baseball was a common password but its use appears to be waning, which coincides with the sports decline in popularity and the rise of football. Passwords can be a gauge of popular culture and 2010 was a wild ride.
Secure Passwords
When you get a password from Nicely Done Sites it will look like a bunch of gobbledy gook. There is good reason for that. Not only will it be long but it will be difficult or impossible to remember. So you’ll need to write it down. The password cannot be cracked easily and if it can’t be cracked quickly the attacker will usually just move on to a softer target. Considering password and 123456 are almost always #1 and #2 there are still plenty of soft targets on the Internet (though in 2019 password finally fell to #4 though 123456 still held the top spot). You won’t be one of them.
The point of using a secure password is to make it more difficult for an attacker to break into an account by either being able to guess your password or by brute force. While the password’s days are numbered they are still being used, so it is still a good idea to make it as secure as possible. There is a reason that these passwords are never found on the list of least secure passwords.
When you get a password from Nicely Done Sites you can change it if you want to. Before you change it to something less secure and easier to remember, consult these lists and make sure what you want to change it to is not on these lists. These lists are compiled from the password files that are found on the Internet after data breaches so if you see the password that you want to use on these lists, pick something else. You wouldn’t leave your home or business’s doors unlocked or only partially locked, why leave your online accounts in that position?
Let’s also hope that there is some change the next time we do this in 2020. It doesn’t seem like the general public learned much in the 2010s.