We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again. And again. And again. Passwords are important. But this message still fails to reach millions of people who pick “12345” as their password.

Independent researchers, who requested to stay anonymous, compiled and shared with us a list of 200 most popular passwords that were leaked in data breaches just this year. The database is quite impressive — 500 million passwords in total. And if you think that’s a lot of leaked passwords, we have some bad news for you — it’s just the tip of the iceberg.

2019 saw a lot of data breaches that affected billions of internet users. Collections #1-5 alone contained almost 3 billion accounts. With data breaches becoming so commonplace, internet users need to step up their cybersecurity game.

Sports, women’s names, and food

The most popular passwords contain all the obvious and easy to guess number combinations (12345,111111,123321), popular female names (Nicole, Jessica, Hannah), and just strings of letters forming a horizontal or vertical line on a QWERTY keyboard ({scramble1}, {scramle2} , 1qaz2wsx, etc.). Surprisingly, the most obvious one — “password” — remains very popular; 830,846 people still use it.

Top 200 passwords from 2019 (click to expand) Password Count 1. 12345 2812220 2. 123456 2485216 3. 123456789 1052268 4. test1 993756 5. password 830846 6. 12345678 512560 7. zinch 483443 8. g_czechout 372278 9. asdf 359520 10. qwerty 348762 11. 1234567890 329341 12. 1234567 261610 13. Aa123456. 212903 14. iloveyou 171657 15. 1234 169683 16. abc123 150977 17. 111111 148079 18. 123123 145365 19. dubsmash 144104 20. test 139624 21. princess 122658 22. qwertyuiop 116273 23. sunshine 107202 24. BvtTest123 106991 25. 11111 104395 26. ashley 94557 27. 00000 92927 28. 000000 92330 29. password1 92009 30. monkey 86404 31. livetest 83677 32. 55555 83004 33. soccer 80159 34. charlie 78914 35. asdfghjkl 77360 36. 654321 76498 37. family 76007 38. michael 71035 39. 123321 69727 40. football 68495 41. baseball 67981 42. q1w2e3r4t5y6 66586 43. nicole 64992 44. jessica 63498 45. purple 62709 46. shadow 62592 47. hannah 62394 48. chocolate 62325 49. michelle 61873 50. daniel 61643 51. maggie 61445 52. qwerty123 59782 53. hello 59125 54. 112233 58745 55. jordan 58698 56. tigger 57167 57. 666666 56801 58. 987654321 56653 59. superman 56113 60. 12345678910 55414 61. summer 55403 62. 1q2w3e4r5t 55318 63. fitness 55095 64. bailey 54405 65. zxcvbnm 53307 66. fuckyou 52997 67. 121212 52684 68. buster 51495 69. butterfly 51413 70. dragon 50640 71. jennifer 50602 72. amanda 50560 73. justin 50294 74. cookie 49712 75. basketball 49556 76. shopping 49085 77. pepper 48564 78. joshua 48230 79. hunter 47430 80. ginger 47404 81. matthew 47207 82. abcd1234 47064 83. taylor 46375 84. samantha 46353 85. whatever 46339 86. andrew 46083 87. 1qaz2wsx3edc 45643 88. thomas 45317 89. jasmine 45190 90. animoto 44940 91. madison 44183 92. 0987654321 44175 93. 54321 43912 94. flower 43696 95. Password 43430 96. maria 43177 97. babygirl 43037 98. lovely 42897 99. sophie 42889 100. Chegg123 42542 101. computer 42531 102. qwe123 42478 103. anthony 42427 104. 1q2w3e4r 42242 105. peanut 42143 106. bubbles 42142 107. asdasd 42096 108. qwert 41948 109. 1qaz2wsx 41840 110. pakistan 41798 111. 123qwe 41602 112. liverpool 41272 113. elizabeth 41268 114. harley 41084 115. chelsea 40499 116. familia 39996 117. yellow 39726 118. william 39702 119. george 39270 120. 7777777 39071 121. loveme 38797 122. 123abc 38501 123. letmein 38353 124. oliver 38269 125. batman 37973 126. cheese 37956 127. banana 37910 128. testing 37881 129. secret 37784 130. angel 37764 131. friends 37741 132. jackson 37731 133. aaaaaa 37568 134. softball 37556 135. chicken 37250 136. lauren 37151 137. andrea 36940 138. welcome 36723 139. asdfgh 36597 140. robert 35654 141. orange 35594 142. Testing1 35389 143. pokemon 35293 144. 555555 35128 145. melissa 35045 146. morgan 34829 147. 123123123 34721 148. qazwsx 34436 149. diamond 34422 150. brandon 34227 151. jesus 34220 152. mickey 34180 153. olivia 34110 154. changeme 33940 155. danielle 33781 156. victoria 33770 157. gabriel 33679 158. 123456a 33562 159. 0.00000000 33417 160. loveyou 33306 161. hockey 33091 162. freedom 33047 163. azerty 32881 164. snoopy 32792 165. skinny 32682 166. myheritage 32619 167. qwerty1 32560 168. 159753 32365 169. forever 32115 170. iloveu 32043 171. killer 31879 172. joseph 31852 173. master 31667 174. mustang 31619 175. hellokitty 31458 176. school 30905 177. Password1 30871 178. patrick 30821 179. blink182 30756 180. tinkerbell 30739 181. rainbow 30726 182. nathan 30489 183. cooper 30457 184. onedirection 30388 185. alexander 30078 186. jordan23 29874 187. lol123 29832 188. jasper 29813 189. junior 29502 190. q1w2e3r4 29368 191. 222222 29362 192. 11111111 29291 193. benjamin 29288 194. jonathan 29279 195. passw0rd 29267 196. 0123456789 29110 197. a123456 29103 198. samsung 29073 199. 123 29068 200. love123 29064

Why has nothing changed?

Year after year, we see the same passwords at the top of the “worst passwords” list. Why do people keep on using use them?

The first reason is that they are easier to remember. Simple as that – most people prefer to use weak passwords rather than strain themselves by trying to remember long, complex ones. Unfortunately, it also means they use the same one for all their accounts. And if one of them ends up in a breach, all other accounts are automatically compromised too.

Second — they think they have nothing to hide. However, you lock your door when you leave the house. Even if there’s nothing valuable inside, you still wouldn’t like strangers going through your personal belongings. So why not apply the same logic to your online life?

You might not have anything to hide, but what if you end up locked out of all your accounts – email, the file storage where you keep all your photos, social media, etc.? Imagine having to pay thousands of dollars in ransom to regain access. A weak password is a disaster waiting to happen, so take action to stop it before it’s too late.

The solution

You can easily avoid these problems by maintaining good password hygiene.

Go over all the accounts you have and delete the ones you no longer use. If a small, obscure website ends up breached, you might never even hear about it. You can use haveibeenpwned.com to check if your email was ever in a breach. Update all your passwords and use unique, complicated ones to safeguard your accounts. Employ a password generator to make sure they are impossible to guess. To see if any of your current passwords were ever exposed online, head over to our password strength checker. Use 2FA if you can. Whether it’s an app, biometric data, or hardware security key, your accounts will be much safer when you add that extra layer of protection. Set up a password manager. NordPass is easy to use, it syncs across all our devices, and you don’t have to worry about your passwords ending up in the wrong hands. You will only need to remember one master password and forget about the rest. NordPass will do the work for you. Make sure to check your every account for suspicious activities regularly. If you notice something unusual, change your password immediately.

Data is getting more and more valuable. So as breaches continue to happen to large companies, like Microsoft, Yahoo, and Facebook, users need to protect their data themselves. So, all the Michelles from Liverpool who like sunshine and dragons, please change your passwords right now.