What are the most hacked passwords? Is yours among them?

Contrary to popular belief, cyber criminals do not perform highly complex tricks to break into people’s accounts.

It is far easier to run a simple code that tries a few of the most hacked passwords. If you use any of them on your account, they succeed.

Let’s reveal those most hacked passwords and discuss how you can protect your account.

What is the most commonly hacked password?

The first place among the most hacked passwords assuredly belongs to 123456.

As many as 23.2 million victims globally used this password when their accounts were leaked.

This password is effortless to remember; a straightforward sequence allows one to type in the password with only one finger swipe.

What passwords can be hacked?

The other most hacked passwords follow a similar pattern.

We have analyzed a few reports ( UK National Cyber Security Centre, Lookout, Dojo, and Safety Detectives) that research password usage.

Here are the top 10 passwords that appeared to be the most commonly used:

1. 123456
2. 123456789
3. qwerty
4. password
5. 12345
6. 1234567
7. 111111
8. 12345678
9. abc123
10. qwerty123

People use such passwords because they are just too easy to forget.

These passwords are the first option that comes to mind when you create a new password.

They are the most intuitive to type credentials out there that appear on every keyboard.

But negligence in cybersecurity always comes with a price.

These are also the most hacked passwords out there.

How can hackers use these passwords to break into your account?

These passwords are low-hanging fruits for hackers. It is highly profitable for cybercriminals to try out these passwords since there is a high success rate of accessing your account.

Let’s say your email was once leaked. ( You can check it here.)

That means your go-to email is already on the dark web.

A cybercriminal can run a simple code to try to break into your work account. A hacker will use the email once leaked on the dark web. Now, he only needs a password.

For that – you have probably seen this coming – hackers usually use the most hacked passwords.

He runs a quick credential stuffing attack that tries out every possible combination of a username and password until he guesses correctly. The weaker and more common the credential, the less time it takes to crack the account.

A successful data breach does not require considerable effort, expert knowledge, or 10+ years of technical know-how.

It only requires users to be lazy enough.

How to protect your passwords from getting hacked?

If you found your credential among the most hacked passwords, change it immediately.

If you used one of these weak passwords, you have probably reused your credentials too. And that is another too frequent and too expensive mistake that puts users at risk.

So, what can you do to protect your accounts?

Here are the 10 rules that can help you protect your passwords from getting hacked:

1. Change all passwords that you found on the most hacked passwords list.
2. Never reuse the same credential on more than one account.
3. You do not need to remember all your passwords. Store them securely in a reliable password manager.
4. Create only strong passwords. Ideally, use a password generator for that.
5. Turn on Two-factor authentication on all accounts that support this feature.
6. Never include personal information in your passwords (birth dates, pet or people names, brands, car names, or even star signs).
7. When you create a password, mix lower and capital letters, numbers, and special symbols.
8. Use long, at least 15-character long passwords.
9. Never keep your passwords in notebooks, excel files, or other plaintext formats.
10. Last, never use a password that is similar to your username.

Start following good password creation practices today. Your passwords will do the job they are intended to do – protect your accounts.