Ride the Lightning

We are Doomed! 123456 is the Number One Password in the UK

April 25, 2019

Naked Security reported on April 23rd that 123456 is again the #1 password according to the UK's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) which released its first ever UK cyber survey.

70% of the 1,350 Brits surveyed between November 2018 and January 2019 believe they’re going to be cyber-pounced on sometime in the next two years, and it will cause a “big personal impact.” Many people – 37% – think that getting mugged online for money or personal details is inevitable these days. Losing money is the biggest concern, with 42% feeling it’s likely to happen by 2021. That’s not keeping them from buying stuff online, though: 89% are using the internet to make online purchases, and 39% say they do so on a weekly basis.

The NCSC, in collaboration with Have I Been Pwned’s Troy Hunt, released a file containing his data set’s top 100,000 most commonly reoccurring breached passwords. In that list, “123456” once again showed up at the very top, being found in use 23.2 million times. While there’s nothing that whispers “I give up” quite as fervently as that one, No. 2 comes close: it was “123456789,” being found 7.7 million times.

Also making their many, predictable appearances were these gnarly, old, easily guessable passwords:

qwerty (3.8 million)
password (3.6 million)
1111111 (3.1 million)

Seriously, people, you are doomed if you are using these dreadful passwords. Get serious about passwords and password managers!

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