Millions of people are using easy-to-guess passwords on sensitive accounts, suggests a study.
The analysis by the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) found 123456 was the most widely-used password on breached accounts.
The NCSC said people should string three random but memorable words together to use as a strong password.
For its first cyber-survey, the NCSC analysed public databases of breached accounts to see which words, phrases and strings people used.
Top of the list was 123456, appearing in more than 23 million passwords. The second-most popular string, 123456789, was not much harder to crack, while others in the top five included “qwerty”, “password” and 1111111.
The most common name to be used in passwords was Ashley, followed by Michael, Daniel, Jessica and Charlie.
When it comes to Premier League football teams in guessable passwords, Liverpool are top of the list while Chelsea sit second.
Blink-182 topped the charts of music acts.
You can explore Hunt’s database yourself to find how many times simple passwords (or your own) have shown up in lists of accounts caught up in security breaches.
