We’ll never learn: One of your passwords is probably “password”

A street magician comes up to you and says, “I’ll guess your password.” They give you a penetrating look that reaches the part of your soul that created that code. “Is that ‘password’?” They are probably correct.

NordPass ends the year by calling us all with its top 200 most common passwords(Opens in a new window) list. The compiled list of cybersecurity researchers by evaluating databases. They then divided the list by country and gender for further insight.

The most common password overall was “password”, followed by “123456”, “123456789”, “guest” and “qwerty”. All of these, except “guest”, take less than a second to crack. Anyone who logs in with “guest” gets an extra 17 seconds before being hacked.

“Guest” also happens to be the top password among women in the US – men choose “12345” first. However, there aren’t many differences between male and female passwords in the top 10, with most choosing a string of sequential numbers and variations of the word password. The exceptions are “sunshine”, which is number 7, and “princess” at number 10 for women.

While they may speak the same language in the UK, it’s a different world when it comes to their passwords and football – excuse us, football. “Liverpool” is fourth on the overall list, and when you split the list by gender, men have “liverpool” at number 5, “arsenal” at number 8 and “chelsea” at number 10. Women in the UK have made some confusing password choices, at least for this American woman, who wonders if “charlie”, who is number 3, is related to Prince Charles; whether “begging” at number 4 is due to the Hundred Acre Forest resident; why “chocolate” is number 8; what has made “monkey” the king of all other animals at number 9; and what on earth “softgunmurah” is at number 10.

However, some things unite the world. Like finding password inspiration in sports, food, movies, swear words, fashion brands, video games and cars. NordPass found that the year’s best films and TV series were in focus. “Batman” was used 2,562,776 times, “euphoria” 53,993 and “encanto” 10,808 times.

So while we’re not talking about Bruno, we should talk about choosing a better password. You can either use a trick to remember a strong password or get a password manager.

4 simple things you can do to be safer online — Clarification