Revealed: These are the world's most popular passwords... are you guilty of using them?

Cyber security: The world's top passwords have been revealed
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Fiona Simpson24 May 2018

The world’s most common passwords have been revealed showing most people are not taking cyber security seriously.

Emotionally charged phrases including “I love you” and “f*** you” topped the list alongside glaringly obvious tributes to favourite bands and football teams.

A study of 61 million leaked passwords by Virginia Tech University and security firm Dashlane revealed last year’s most overused security phrases.

People appeared to pick memorable passwords over high-security phrases with a number of Champions League teams and heavy metal bands used widely across the globe.

Security scare: These are the world's most popular passwords
Dashlane

Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal and Barcelona were the most popular teams used to protect people’s accounts and data.

The most popular football teams used as passwords

 

Liverpool
Chelsea
Arsenal
Barcelona
Manchester

Bands Slipknot, Metallica, Nirvana, Green Day and Blink 182 also cropped up numerous times during the study.

Favourite movies and bands used to keep accounts secure

 

Superman
Pokemon 
Slipknot
Starwars
Metallica 
Nirvana
Blink182
Spiderman
Greenday
Rockstar

Popular brand names including MySpace, Mustang and Playboy were also popular choices.

Most popular brand names

 

Myspace
Mustang
Linkedin
Ferrari
Playboy
Mercedes
Cocacola
Snickers
Corvette
Skittles
 

Obvious choices including QWERTY and 123456 featured in the list alongside alphabetical and numerical patterns using adjacent keys on a keyboard.

The system known as “password walking” left numerous people using phrases including 1q2w3e4r and 1qaz2wsx.

Top 10 emotional phrases

 

Iloveyou
F***you
A**hole
F***off
Iloveme
Trustno1
Beautiful
Ihateyou
Bulls***
Lovelove

Dr Gang Wang from Virginia Tech University said: “It is difficult for humans to memorise unique passwords for the 150+ accounts the average person has.

“Inevitably, people reuse or slightly modify them, which is a dangerous practice. This danger has been amplified by the massive data breaches which have given attackers more effective tools for guessing and hacking passwords."

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