Worst Passwords Of 2015: Why Is Everyone Still Using '123456' And 'Starwars' To Protect Their Online Data?

It turns out it doesn’t matter if people are required to plug in six characters or 10 for their internet login passwords — they’ll still make them too easy to guess. In 2015, character strings such as “1234567890” and “qwertyuiop” made the list for worst passwords, according to password management application company SplashData.

The list was compiled from more than 2 million passwords leaked during 2015. While longer passwords made the list for the first time, many classic poor password choices remained on it, such as “123456” and “password,” which took the first and second spots in the rankings. Numerical-only passwords made up six of the top 10 passwords on the list.

“We have seen an effort by many people to be more secure by adding characters to passwords, but if these longer passwords are based on simple patterns they will put you in just as much risk of having your identity stolen by hackers,” Morgan Slain, CEO of SplashData, said in a press statement.

Pop culture was also an inspiration for some of the worst offenders on the list. While the force may be with Luke Skywalker of “Star Wars,” passwords such as “starwars” “solo” and “princess” did very little to protect online accounts from unauthorized access.

With that in mind, there are a few practices that can make online accounts more secure. For example, use a password with at least 12 characters and a mixture of letters, numbers and symbols, SplashData suggests. Also, avoid the repeated use of one password on multiple websites.

The drawback there is that putting both of those tips into practice can make for a very lengthy list of passwords to memorize. To reduce that burden, consider using a password manager such as 1Password, LastPass or SplashID to organize your list of login information into one secure place.

Here’s the full list of SplashData’s worst passwords of 2015: