The top 500 worst passwords of all time: how is "Password" not number one?

**Fluffy** · January 10th, 2009, 12:08 AM

Posted by Paul Constant on Mon, Jan 5 at 5:02 PM

Here is a list of the top 500 worst passwords of all time. Here are a few of them:

It's pretty fascinating—and depressing—stuff. I don't use any of the passwords on this list, but I do have to say I know a couple of my passwords are really bad. I figure the badness, at this point, almost works as protection.

The Stranger | Slog | How Is "Password" Not Number One?

The Top 500 Worst Passwords of All Time

November 30th, 2008

From the moment people started using passwords, it didn’t take long to realize how many people picked the very same passwords over and over. Even the way people misspell words is consistent. In fact, people are so predictable that most hackers make use of lists of common passwords just like these. To give you some insight into how predictable humans are, the following is a list of the 500 most common passwords. If you see your password on this list, please change it immediately. Keep in mind that every password listed here has been used by at least hundreds if not thousands of other people.

There are some interesting passwords on this list that show how people try to be clever, but even human cleverness is predictable. For example, look at these passwords that I found interesting:

ncc1701 The ship number for the Starship Enterprise
thx1138 The name of George Lucas’s first movie, a 1971 remake of an earlier student project
qazwsx Follows a simple pattern when typed on a typical keyboard
666666 Six sixes
7777777 Seven sevens
ou812 The title of a 1988 Van Halen album
8675309 The number mentioned in the 1982 Tommy Tutone song. The song supposedly caused an epidemic of people dialing 867- 5309 and asking for “Jenny”

“…Approximately one out of every nine people uses at least one password on the list shown in Table 9.1! And one out of every 50 people uses one of the top 20 worst passwords..”

Lists the top 500 worst passwords of all time, not considering character case. Don’t blame me for the offensive words; you were the ones who picked these, not me.

Source: Perfect Passwords, Mark Burnett 2005

What’s My Pass? » The Top 500 Worst Passwords of All Time

**msdeb** · January 10th, 2009, 12:32 AM

a girl at my old job chose 'fucker' as her password, and got fired, when HR found out.

**olivia720** · January 10th, 2009, 12:33 AM

I have the best password of all time. its a non word me and my best friend made up in high school.

**Quazar** · January 10th, 2009, 11:55 AM

I have so many passwords it's hard to keep them straight. Many of them expire after a certain amount of time so you are constantly having to think of new ones. Then you have PIN numbers, voicemail codes, log-in names etc. - it's just out of hand.

**TonjaLasagna** · January 10th, 2009, 12:00 PM

Originally Posted by olivia720

I have the best password of all time. its a non word me and my best friend made up in high school.

That's the way forward.
I use an obscure gallic language for all my passwords, plus I add two numbers, which makes it all but impossible to break

**holly** · January 13th, 2009, 10:10 AM

Originally Posted by Quazar

I have so many passwords it's hard to keep them straight. Many of them expire after a certain amount of time so you are constantly having to think of new ones. Then you have PIN numbers, voicemail codes, log-in names etc. - it's just out of hand.

I know. It makes me want to scream. And not only that, but it has to be at least so many characters, contain both upper & lower case, & a number. SO.ANNOYING. And then on top of that, a lot of the time you can't reuse one for a certain (long) amount of time. Half the time I have to have my password reset b/c I can't remember it.

**sputnik** · January 13th, 2009, 11:13 AM

Originally Posted by msdeb

a girl at my old job chose 'fucker' as her password, and got fired, when HR found out.

lol i just spit lettuce chunks on my screen.
why did they fire her? seems overly harsh.

**chartreuse** · January 13th, 2009, 11:20 AM

seriously, "pussy" is no. 5? dude, i find it completely hilarious, and almost unbelievable, that that many people use that as a password.

**AliceInWonderland** · January 13th, 2009, 12:15 PM

how do you even know this? and who chooses these? and aren't most ppl's passwords have something to do with them?! like a variant on their name or a nickname? lol

**sputnik** · January 13th, 2009, 12:43 PM

what, no 'penis'?

**Fluffy** · January 13th, 2009, 01:54 PM

^It's #260 actually.

**Glitter** · January 13th, 2009, 01:59 PM

one of mine is on there time for a change I guess.

**greysfang** · January 13th, 2009, 03:01 PM

None of mine are even close to any of these.

**Mel1973** · January 14th, 2009, 01:12 PM

I used to use stuff like "kissmyass", "suckit" "bitemyass".... nobody could ever guess mine - even if they were trying. .. and then one day I wasn't here and someone needed to log into my computer because they needed something and our boss called me ... I had to have my peon go to my desk and log on and he thought that was the funniest shit ever ... imagine that conversation:
now type in "kissmyass"
no, seriously, what's your password
it's kissmyass
you're shitting me
no

And I'm with the other guys upthread. All my passwords have to be changed every 90 days and you can't use the same password or anything remotely similiar within 15 changes.... and some need at least 8 characters plus a number plus an upper case letter plus a special character ...