Anyone who uses a computer uses a password... and we've all read stories warning us about not using obvious ones.

But are we taking any notice? Not according to SplashData.

Its annual list compiles the millions of stolen passwords made public throughout the year.

Since it's headed by '123456' and 'password', it seems that the advice of using random words with odd capital letters and numbers just isn't being heeded.

And here they are... the 25 worst passwords you could choose:

  1. 123456 (Unchanged)
  2. password (Unchanged)
  3. 12345 (Up 17)
  4. 12345678 (Down 1)
  5. qwerty (Down 1)
  6. 123456789 (Unchanged)
  7. 1234 (Up 9)
  8. baseball (New)
  9. dragon (New)
  10. football (New)
  11. 1234567 (Down 4)
  12. monkey (Up 5)
  13. letmein (Up 1)
  14. abc123 (Down 9)
  15. 111111 (Down 8)
  16. mustang (New)
  17. access (New)
  18. shadow (Unchanged)
  19. master (New)
  20. michael (New)
  21. superman (New)
  22. 696969 (New)
  23. 123123 (Down 12)
  24. batman (New)
  25. trustno1 (Down 1)


Bath University's advice on creating a password is to make sure it's:

  • At least eight characters long
  • Has digits or punctuation as well as letters
  • Has both uppercase and lowercase letters
  • Not solely made up of:
  • Anybody's name
  • Any information relating to you or anybody else (birthday, NI number, car registration, star sign, etc.)
  • A word found in a dictionary in any language
  • Any of these spelt backwards
  • Any of these followed or prepended by a single digit
  • Do not contain these characters : £ | # " ' `

​Find out more here about creating a strong, safe password