Passwords.. You’ll hear it a lot from tech people about how complex your passwords should be. And although you may think “Oh, I’m fine using simple passwords if I make it long.” – I beg to differ.

An old community I used to be a part of and help manage had quite a lot of members – over 6 million registered (although I’m sure the majority of those were spam accounts). It died near the end of 2008, I was fortunate enough to have made a backup of the accounts database on July 13th, 2008.

Yesterday, and earlier today I was sifting through some of my old backups and I ended up doing queries on the database to see the most common passwords (Before you say anything, I’m aware that these passwords are not hashed – the software we used did not support it until later sadly) . It’s kind of funny, the #1 most common of the passwords was ‘123456’ – used by 3,482 people. Passwords like that are extremely insecure and can lead to your account being broken into very easily. It’s no wonder people are always having security problems, losing access to their PayPal, bank, and other important accounts – all because the didn’t want to secure their passwords. Stupidity knows no bounds.

I’ve compiled a list of the top 100 passwords used below for your viewing, and laughing pleasure.

1. 123456 – used by 3,482 people
2. password – used by 1,167 people
3. 12345 – used by 946 people
4. 123 – used by 925 people
5. 123456789 – used by 839 people
6. 1234 – used by 732 people
7. qwerty – used by 721 people
8. lol – used by 592 people
9. 123123 – used by 591 people
10. killer – used by 523 people
11. dragon – used by 498 people
12. lol123 – used by 430 people
13. abc123 – used by 393 people
14. shadow – used by 385 people
15. warcraft – used by 357 people
16. password1 – used by 317 people
17. 123321 – used by 303 people
18. asdasd – used by 302 people
19. master – used by 294 people
20. 12345678 – used by 274 people
21. lollol – used by 252 people
22. monkey – used by 242 people
23. daniel – used by 237 people
24. pokemon – used by 237 people
25. 1q2w3e4r – used by 220 people
26. 123qwe – used by 210 people
27. wow – used by 204 people
28. 159753 – used by 201 people
29. 111111 – used by 197 people
30. 1234567 – used by 196 people
31. STARWARS – used by 194 people
32. hunter – used by 188 people
33. soccer – used by 186 people
34. poop – used by 185 people
35. qazwsx – used by 185 people
36. cheese – used by 181 people
37. diablo – used by 181 people
38. hejsan – used by 159 people
39. 000000 – used by 158 people
40. Slipknot – used by 158 people
41. thomas – used by 155 people
42. asd – used by 152 people
43. google – used by 147 people
44. qwerty123 – used by 143 people
45. eminem – used by 142 people
46. andrew – used by 141 people
47. 666666 – used by 141 people
48. 1q2w3e – used by 141 people
49. samsung – used by 140 people
50. 1 – used by 139 people
51. hejhej – used by 138 people
52. martin – used by 135 people
53. asdf – used by 133 people
54. superman – used by 131 people
55. abcd1234 – used by 128 people
56. matrix – used by 127 people
57. football – used by 127 people
58. metallica – used by 126 people
59. 112233 – used by 126 people
60. michael – used by 125 people
61. alex – used by 124 people
62. 654321 – used by 121 people
63. logitech – used by 120 people
64. hello – used by 117 people
65. fuckyou – used by 117 people
66. – used by 116 people (Although you can’t see it, there should be 8 spaces here – Yes, 8 spaces)
67. SLAYER – used by 116 people
68. 121212 – used by 115 people
69. blink182 – used by 110 people
70. darkness – used by 110 people
71. asd123 – used by 109 people
72. baseball – used by 109 people
73. aaaaaa – used by 109 people
74. computer – used by 109 people
75. chicken – used by 108 people
76. 1234qwer – used by 107 people
77. 1234567890 – used by 105 people
78. asdfgh – used by 104 people
79. justin – used by 104 people
80. 1qaz2wsx – used by 104 people
81. asdf1234 – used by 103 people
82. hahaha – used by 103 people
83. qweasd – used by 103 people
84. alexander – used by 102 people
85. qwe123 – used by 102 people
86. robert – used by 102 people
87. naruto – used by 102 people
88. hallo – used by 101 people
89. parola – used by 101 people
90. asshole – used by 99 people
91. hej123 – used by 98 people
92. warcraft1 – used by 97 people
93. letmein – used by 96 people
94. oliver – used by 94 people
95. 1111 – used by 94 people
96. matthew – used by 94 people
97. element – used by 93 people
98. asdfasdf – used by 92 people
99. noob – used by 92 people
100. brandon – used by 91 people

Please, for everyone’s sake.. choose a less common and slightly more complicated password.