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“Mustang” Among the Worst Passwords of 2014

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Worst Passwords for 2014

Do you recognize the vehicle in this picture as an important password? Might want to change that.

Are you a proud Mustang enthusiast through and through? Are you in fact so proud that you opted to make the word Mustang your password for important things like your email account or online banking? Well, you might want to consider changing tack.

According to SplashData’s list of Worst Passwords for 2014, “mustang” is the 16th most popular password behind other stellar and nigh-uncrackable choices including “111111,” “abc123,” and “letmein.”

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“Passwords based on simple patterns on your keyboard remain popular despite how weak they are,” said Morgan Slain, CEO of SplashData. “Any password using numbers alone should be avoided, especially sequences. As more websites require stronger passwords or combinations of letters and numbers, longer keyboard patterns are becoming common passwords, and they are still not secure.”

Protip: it’s also probably not a great idea to make your password one of the most-Googled cars of 2014. According to SplashData, numerous film names, car brands, famous athletes, and swear words and phrases appeared among the top 100 most common passwords. It’s a fair bet that “Ford” and “F150” were probably somewhere in there as well.

10 Worst Passwords of 2014

The Top 10 Worst Passwords of 2014
Photo: Splashdata

The Top 25 Worst Passwords of 2014 are as follows:

  1. 123456
  2. Password
  3. 12345
  4. 12345678
  5. Qwerty
  6. 123456789
  7. 1234
  8. Baseball
  9. Dragon
  10. Football
  11. 1234567
  12. Monkey
  13. Letmein
  14. Abc123
  15. 111111
  16. Mustang
  17. Access
  18. Shadow
  19. Master
  20. Michael
  21. Superman
  22. 696969
  23. 123123
  24. Batman
  25. Trustno1

Tips for creating new, more secure passwords include not using your birthday or birth year, your name, your favorite team, or entire rows or columns of buttons on the keyboard pressed in order.

Tips for effective new passwords for 2015 include commonsense, howtointernet, and pickabetterpasswordthanmustang.

News/Photo Source: SplashData