(CNN) — Perhaps you chuckled at the irony of making your password “password.” Or you thought it was the right place to express affection for your favorite primate by choosing “monkey.”
More likely, you were lazy and wanted something easy to remember, like “123456.”
If you’re using any of these passwords, change them.
Those are some of the most common passwords, according to a new list released by security company Splash Data. The group comes up with the top 25 list based on lists of passwords that were stolen and posted publicly in the previous year.
This year, the most common password is “123456,” which unseated last year’s No. 1, “password.”
In addition to strings of digits in numerical order and simple words and letters like “qwerty” and “admin,” there are a few phrases on the list. The sweet and common “iloveyou” is beeloved by hackers, as is “letmein,” “trustno1” and “password1.”
A string of high-profile breaches in the past year may serve as a wake-up call to the consumers who use these passwords. Many perhaps assume they would never be the target of hackers, so there’s no reason to enact strict, or even common-sense, security measures.
