The 25 worst passwords of 2013

“123456” is finally getting some time in the spotlight as the world's worst password, after spending years in the shadow of “password.”

Security firm Splashdata, which every year compiles a list of the most common stolen passwords, found that “123456” moved into the number one slot in 2013. Previously, “password” had dominated the rankings.

The change in leadership is largely thanks to Adobe, whose major security breach in October affected upwards of 48 million users. A list of passwords from the Adobe breach had “123456” on top, followed by “123456789” and “password.” The magnitude of the breach had a major impact on Splashdata's results, explaining why “photoshop” and “adobe123” worked their way onto this year's list.

Fans of “password” could reasonably petition for an asterisk, however, given that the stolen Adobe passwords included close to 100 million test accounts and inactive accounts. Counting those passwords on the list is kind of like setting a home run record during batting practice. Don't be surprised if “password” regains the throne in 2014.

Weaker passwords are more susceptible to brute-force attacks, where hackers attempt to access accounts through rapid guessing. And when encrypted passwords are stolen, weaker ones are the first to fall to increasingly sophisticated cracking software.

As always, Splashtop suggests avoiding common words and phrases, and says that replacing letters with similar-looking numbers (such as “3” instead of “E) is not an effective strategy. Instead, consider using phrases of random words separated by spaces or underscores, and using different passwords, at least for your most sensitive accounts. Password management programs such as LastPass, KeePass and Splashdata's own SplashID can also help, as you only have to remember a single master password.

Here's the full list of worst passwords from 2013, according to Splashdata:

1. 123456
2. password
3. 12345678
4. qwerty
5. abc123
6. 123456789
7. 111111
8. 1234567
9. iloveyou
10. adobe123
11. 123123
12. admin
13. 1234567890
14. letmein
15. photoshop
16. 1234
17. monkey
18. shadow
19. sunshine
20. 12345
21. password1
22. princess
23. azerty
24. trustno1
25. 000000

sources: www.pcworld.com and splashdata.com

Lucky me, I don't use any of those. And I have 1 diferent password per account. But what about you?

Do you use any of those as a password or use the same password for all your accounts?

And then a wave of hackers used said data to enslave half the internet!

oh... I see.... just wait a minute "changing password".

lol, trustno1

Monkey is one of the worst passwords of 2013? I used it in almost all of my accounts and I never had a problem...

Not the whole internet, just the ones using Adobe software.

there is also one dynamic one that isn't on this list

aka password being the username.....

Time to change my MonkeyPrincessPhotoshop passwords to something else before it's too late...

Why is letmein popular? Oh I see let me in.

Talking about passwords, that handy digital pin you can set on your cable box so your kids don't order stuff by 'mistake' can easily be reset to 0000 with an automated phone call to my cable provider. Press 1 to reset digital cable pin to 0000. No notification, nothing, what's the frigging point of that.

Just add "_01" or the year you were born, like many do .