In 2023, NordPass, a company known for its password management solutions, published a new ranking of the most common passwords, and the results are disappointing. The simplest password “123456” topped the list, thereby highlighting the general disregard of users for cybersecurity issues. The password “password”, which was the leader last year, dropped to 7th place. This ranking highlights the ongoing trend of weak and predictable passwords, which compromises users’ digital security.

An analysis of the ranking of the 200 most common passwords shows that most of them are extremely vulnerable. The top 10 includes such simple combinations as “123”, “1234”, “12345”, “12345678”, “123456789” and “1234567890”, as well as “Aa123456” and, of course, “password”. What’s especially disconcerting is that these passwords can be cracked by attackers in less than a second using simple brute force methods—an approach to cracking passwords by trying every possible combination.

However, there are exceptions, such as “theworldinyourhand”, which ranks 173rd in the ranking. This password is virtually impossible to crack using conventional methods and would take centuries to guess manually. While the password “admin”, which came in 2nd place, is standard on many devices and is easily hacked.

Adding “123” to “admin” or using the “@” symbol between the word and numbers significantly increases the cracking time. For example, “admin123” and “admin@123” require significantly more time to select. An interesting fact is the popularity of the password “Eliska81”, which ranks 40th in the ranking, used by more than 75,755 people. This highlights how random and unexpected combinations can become popular.

In addition, it is worth noting that the password “admintelecom” is in 54th place. This password takes about 23 days to crack using brute force, making it one of the most secure on the list.

Experts predict that next year the list of the most common passwords will remain virtually unchanged. The security of personal data and the reliability of protection against unauthorized access depend on the choice of password. In the modern digital world, the responsibility for the safety of their data lies with each user.