Time to update your passwords

It’s 2019, if you are using the password “123456,” it’s time to change it.

And don’t just add a few more numbers, making it “123456789,” because that isn’t much better. According to the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre, these are the top two most hacked passwords in the world, followed by qwerty and then password. These continue to top the list of must-change passwords year after year, yet people still use them. Following the always popular ‘password’ for your password, 1111111, 12345678, password1, 12345, 1234567890, 123123 and 000000 are a few of the most hacked passwords.

Iloveyou, 1234, 1q2w3e4r5t, Qwertyuiop, 123, Monkey and Dragon round out the top 20 worst passwords to use. When looking to create a new password, stay away from just using a name, for example, ashley, michael, daniel, jessica and charlie are the top five most hacked name passwords. Band names, even those with numbers, are also easily hacked. In fact, blink182 is the most hacked band password, followed by 50cent, eminem, metallica and slipknot.

In fact, it’s better to not use a word that can be found in the dictionary at all, even if you include numbers after it. Instead, use a combination of letters and characters.

Even if you make up an unhackable password, it can be tempting to use it for everything, but you shouldn’t. Each login should have its own unique password. Then, save your passwords in a secure place, like SplashID, LastPass or 1Password. Just make sure to remember the password to that one.