Discover the most used passwords in the world; Is yours on the list?

You know when you're going to create a password and they ask you to create a strong and varied alphanumeric sequence, with upper and lower case letters and a special character. This is for a reason: to make it more difficult to hack your account. After all, more common passwords are more susceptible to attacks.

In partnership with independent researchers, the password management tool NordPass released a survey of the 200 most common passwords used in 2023.

In the survey, it was shown that of the 20 most used in the world, 17 can be discovered by hackers in – amazing! – less than a second.

What makes a common or weak password?

According to the NordPass survey, the simplest are the “laziest”. That is, numeric sequences like “123456” or “0000”. Or, even, the person's name with a numerical sequence, like “so-and-so123”.

See the ranking of the most common passwords used in 2023:

1. 123456
2. admin
3. 12345678
4. 123456789
5. 1234
6. 12345
7. password
8. 123
9. Aa123456
10. 1234567890
11. UNKNOWN
12. 1234567
13. 123123
14. 111111
15. Password
16. 12345678910
17. 000000
18. admin123
19. ********
20. user

Passwords in bold take less than a second to guess. Therefore, they put your account at complete risk of cyber attack.

A curious fact, highlighted by NordPass, is that “admin” had not appeared on the list for at least five years. And this year, it came in second place. “It's one of the passwords that people don't bother changing. Instead of improving password creation habits, users went in another direction, sticking to pre-configured passwords”, points out the report.

Cybersecurity on the agenda

According to a publication by CNBC Make It, according to the study, 86% of cyber attacks are caused by password theft. More than that, it is believed that around 20% of items sold on the dark web (the darkest and most criminal part of the internet) are online account passwords and emails.

See below how to improve the security of your passwords:

• From time to time, change all your passwords;
• One good keyword has at least 20 characters, including numbers and upper and lower case letters;
• Avoid making reference to your birthday;
• Use different passwords for different sites;
• Don’t use common words like “love”;
• Also don't use your own name.

Graduated in Social Communication from the Federal University of Goiás. Passionate about digital media, pop culture, technology, politics and psychoanalysis.