25 most stupid passwords of 2015

It’s 2016 and you can hope that we all become a little older and wiser this year. Because as you read this list of 2015’s most popular passwords, you will shake your head and reach the firm conclusion that we need to get our act together. Every year, SplashData compiles a list of the millions of stolen passwords made public throughout the last twelve months, then sorts them in order of popularity. In 2015 the results, based on a total of over 2 million leaked passwords, are not the list of random alpha-numeric characters you might hope for. Rather, they’re a lesson in exactly how not to choose a password. Without further ado, check out the list.

Yes, ‘123456’ and ‘password’ remain bewilderingly popular.

There are some interesting trends, if you can get beyond the sheer stupidity for a moment. Sports-based passwords are still popular, with ‘football’ and ‘baseball’ both ranking highly, and so are those inspired by a certain blockbuster film, with ‘starwars’ and ‘solo’ making an appearance.

It’s also nice to see the return of ‘princess’, which dropped out of the Top 25 in 2014 but has made a resurgence. Elsewhere, other new entries — including ‘welcome’, ‘login’ and ‘passw0rd’ — are just as hackable but far more amusingly dumb.

Here's the list:

1. 123456
2. password
3. 12345678
4. qwerty
5. 12345
6. 123456789
7. football
8. 1234
9. 1234567
10. baseball
11. welcome
12. 1234567890
13. abc123
14. 111111
15. 1qaz2wsx
16. dragon
17. master
18. monkey
19. letmein
20. login
21. princess
22. qwertyuiop
23. solo
24. passw0rd
25. starwars