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Krishnadev Calamur, NPR

Is your online password among the worst?

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That's the worst password, according to SplashData. It's probably also a bad idea to leave it on your keyboard.
That's the worst password, according to SplashData. It's probably also a bad idea to leave it on your keyboard.

Over the years, NPR has done many stories on Internet passwords and how to come up with a secure one.

Lazy About Your Online Passwords? Take Control With These New Tips The Most Secure Password In The World Might Be You Prevent Your Password From Becoming Easy Pickings (Or PyPfbEp) Hunting For A Password That Only You Will Know

You'd think we'd have learned how to craft a secure password by now. Turns out not so much.

SplashData, an Internet security services firm, has released its annual list of the 25 worst Internet passwords.

Here are the top five:

  • 123456 (Unchanged from 2013)

  • password (Unchanged)

  • 12345 (Up 17)

  • 12345678 (Down 1)

  • qwerty (Down 1)

New on the list this year are "baseball," "access," "master," "Michael," "superman," "696969" and "batman." The report, the fourth by SpashData, was compiled from more than 3 million passwords leaked during 2014.

(All this must mean batman12345 is OK!)

And, to add to NPR's stories about how to come up with a secure password, we'll add SplashData's tips:

"Use passwords of eight characters or more with mixed types of characters.


"Avoid using the same username/password combination for multiple websites.

"Use a password manager ... to organize and protect passwords, generate random passwords and automatically log into websites."

Copyright 2019 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.