Avoid these horribly bad passwords in 2015

Data security is still a hot topic, thanks to the numerous high profile hacks that have taken place over the past few months. So, at the very least, we should all probably pick reliable passwords to protect our various online accounts with. Fortunately, SplashData’s newly compiled worst passwords of 2014 list gives a few suggestions for passwords that you should avoid.

Looking at the list, “123456” and “password” have somehow managed to retain their top positions from 2013 as the worst possible choices, with “696969” and “batman” joining the ranks as some of the most popular newbies last year. Sports teams, children’s names, and curse words are also rather popular throughout the top 100, and should probably also be avoided. Here’s the list of SlashData’s top 10, which you should definitely not use.

According to the data, 2.2 percent of exposed passwords were made up from the top 25 list and many of the poorest passwords are still being used from last year. However, the good news is that this is actually one of the lower figures seen by the researchers, so the number of people using these key words could slow be beginning to fall.

SplashData suggests using mixed character passwords of eight characters or more and using different passwords for different services. If you’re a little stuck trying to figure out how secure your password is, Microsoft has this handy tool available for free.