As soon as once more, information reveals an uncomfortable reality: the behavior of selecting eminently hackable passwords is alive and properly
20 Jan 2026
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3 min. learn
‘123456’ continues to reign supreme as essentially the most commonly-used password amongst individuals internationally, based on two studies, from NordPass and Comparitech, respectively. A full 25 % of the highest 1,000 most-used passwords are made up of nothing however numerals.
As well as, ‘123456’ appealed to individuals of varied age cohorts, because it was the most-favored possibility amongst millennials, Era X and child boomers alike, and the second most-popular possibility amongst Era Z and the Silent Era (after ‘12345’). That is based on NordPass’ evaluation, which relies on billions of leaked passwords and sheds mild on password tendencies amongst individuals in 44 international locations.
One other all-too-predictable selection, ‘admin’, trailed shut behind, with ‘12345678’, ‘123456789’ and ‘12345’ coming subsequent, as many individuals clearly proceed to favor comfort, placing their private information, cash and presumably reputations in danger.
Within the US and the UK, the general image was simply as grim, with ‘admin’ taking the highest spot in each international locations. Within the US, the one and solely ‘password’ and ‘123456’ took the second and third spots, respectively; within the UK, the 2 simply swapped locations.
A lot the identical image is painted by Comparitech’s analysis into two billion actual account passwords leaked on information breach boards in 2025, because it had ‘123456’, ‘12345678’ and ‘123456789’ atop its listing.
Usual, standard
Utilizing an easily-guessable password is tantamount to locking the entrance door of your own home with a paper latch. It presents no precise resistance, and attackers can use brute-force or credential stuffing methods that permit them to make fast work of such weak or reused passwords at scale.
It goes with out saying, due to this fact, that in case your password made it amongst these commonest password selections, you’d be very properly suggested to change it instantly. Use a powerful and distinctive password or passphrase for every account and ideally, retailer them in a good password supervisor.
Regardless of how cussed, nonetheless, a password remains to be solely a single barrier between your account and a hacker. That’s why two-factor authentication (2FA) as an additional layer of safety is a non-negotiable line of protection as of late, significantly for accounts that include Personally Identifiable Info (PII) or different vital information.
The dangers rise sharply in company environments. Weak, apparent, or reused passwords can expose not solely particular person workers, however total organizations, their clients, and their companions. Certainly, in lots of circumstances, the preliminary level of entry is neither subtle nor novel; as a substitute, it’s merely a password that ought to by no means have been trusted within the first place. The implications, in the meantime, are not often trivial and span monetary loss, operational disruption, regulatory scrutiny, and long-term reputational harm. Which is why firms want a mixture of technical safeguards and ongoing safety consciousness coaching applications for workers.
In the meantime, the technical limitations for ne’er-do-wells have by no means been decrease. Fashionable instruments can take a look at numerous combos of login credentials in minutes, so the chances are firmly stacked within the attacker’s favor. Plus, within the digital ecosystem constructed on interconnected providers and shared identities, the harm stemming from one account takeover is unlikely to remain contained for lengthy.
Additionally, passkeys are quickly changing into commonplace, and plenty of main platforms, together with Apple, Google, and Amazon, now provide them as a major login methodology.
You might need had many New 12 months’s resolutions heading into 2026. But when your individual passwords seem on both listing above, enhancing your account safety needs to be one of the vital of them.
