Through personal passwords, you have access to your gaming accounts and the streaming platforms you use, among other things. Therefore, it is all the more important that your passwords are not easy to crack. Unfortunately, a list of the most popular passwords for the year 2023 proves the opposite.
On your journey through the internet, you need more and more accounts and access data that are essential on different websites. Whether it’s your expensive gaming account, access to streaming providers, or your login data for online banking.
Without your passwords, you no longer have access to your data and the various platforms you use. However, many make it easy for hackers to guess the passwords used because they choose simple sequences of numbers or easily guessable words as passwords. Here you will find out what the worst passwords of 2023 are. Is your favorite password on the list?
Popular passwords are cracked in seconds
What are the weakest passwords this year? The security company Nord Security Inc. has created a list of the most popular passwords in collaboration with independent researchers. These have been published annually since 2019 on nordpass.com.
The majority of results apply worldwide, but the top 200 can also be filtered by country of origin. Here are the top 10 most popular passwords in Germany.
| Rank | Password | Time to crack | Number |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | admin | < 1 second | 18,997 |
| 2 | 123456 | < 1 second | 16,914 |
| 3 | zwieback | 2 hours | 9,039 |
| 4 | 12345678 | < 1 second | 5,860 |
| 5 | 123456789 | < 1 second | 5,515 |
| 6 | yxcvbnm | 6 seconds | 5,419 |
| 7 | password | < 1 second | 4,848 |
| 8 | scheisspasswort | 2 months | 3,011 |
| 9 | 12345 | < 1 second | 2,897 |
| 10 | niklas23 | 3 hours | 2,818 |
Passwords consisting of simple number sequences and easy words like password are particularly striking. Such passwords can be discovered in a matter of seconds or even in a fraction of a second. Once a password becomes more complex, decryption takes significantly longer. This report shows how quickly passwords can be cracked.
How was this list created? The US company and the external cybersecurity research group relied on vast databases for this purpose. Their data was evaluated and analyzed. According to their own statement, personal data has not been transmitted by Nord Security Inc.
The data obtained was recorded as purely statistical information. This allows for individual evaluations by country and by category/platform used. The password lists from 2019 to 2022 are additionally available for interested parties as a PDF for download.
Do gamers use better passwords than the general public? No, unfortunately, that is not the case. Even in the gaming category, the top 10 are almost exclusively simple sequences of numbers that can be quickly determined by hackers.
| Rank | Password | Number |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 12345678910 | 112,900 |
| 2 | 987654321 | 40,653 |
| 3 | 87654321 | 23,323 |
| 4 | qwertyuiop | 16,846 |
| 5 | 12345678901 | 16,663 |
| 6 | 11223344 | 14,852 |
| 7 | 111111111 | 12,832 |
| 8 | 1234567891 | 12,724 |
| 9 | 12345678900 | 12,305 |
| 10 | 123456789 | 12,247 |
How is password strength calculated? The password strength was calculated by independent researchers. They evaluated the average number of attempts needed to crack a password for a specific platform/category. The best rating was achieved with a randomly generated password containing 20 characters.
After all, gamers are not at the bottom compared to other categories regarding average password strength. This was given a value of 7.5. In other categories, users chose even less secure passwords. Passwords used on platforms for streaming services, online shopping, and personal email addresses are rated even worse.
Tips for Better Passwords
What can I do to make my passwords harder to crack? Hackers are increasingly stealing access data thanks to advanced technology. However, the more secure a password is chosen, the more difficult it makes the work of internet fraudsters. There is now also an AI that listens to you while you type your passwords.
Here are some tips to keep hackers out of your accounts and accesses:
- Choose passwords that are as complex as possible: The longer a password is, the more time a hacker needs to crack it. Even better is a mix of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and special characters.
- One extra password per access: Internet users tend to use a specific password for multiple websites at the same time. If a hacker gains access to your data, it is easy for them to hijack other accesses if the login name/email address and password are identical. Therefore, make the effort to come up with a new password every time.
- Regularly update your passwords: Even if you should use more complex passwords now, you may still have older passwords that are very easy to guess. It is best to bring these up to date as soon as possible. To be even safer online, it is also advisable to continuously check even more complex passwords.
- Use helpful tools, hackers do it too: In the arms race against hacking tools, you can now rely on programs that make password management easier or take it completely off your hands. With a so-called password manager, you only have to remember one master password. The manager takes care of all other passwords for you. Most tools also offer the function to create complex passwords at the push of a button.
