In the 2024 Edition, U.S. Residents Opt for the Most Idiotic Password Choices
Everyone's aware by now that using a strong password is crucial, but that hasn't stopped numerous individuals from opting for some of the most laughable passwords imaginable. NordPass recently released their annual list of the most popular, easy-to-crack passwords, and you'll be surprised (or not) at what's on it.
The folks behind NordPass, a reliable password manager, have been compiling these lists for six years. The data is collected from passwords stolen by malware or exposed in data breaches. This year's compilation includes personal credentials, as well as corporate passwords, from 44 different countries.
It's fascinating to observe how the most popular bad passwords change by country. For instance, in Canada, "qwerty123" is the most common bad password, while in the U.S., it's "secret." However, globally, the most common password is "123456."
Here are the top 20 most common passwords across 44 countries, along with the top 20 lists for a few other countries like the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. Check them out on NordPass's official site.
Global Top 20 (44 countries)
- 123456
- 123456789
- 12345678
- password
- qwerty123
- qwerty1
- 111111
- 12345
- secret
- 123123
- 1234567890
- 1234567890
- 1234567
- 000000
- qwerty
- abc123
- password1
- iloveyou
- 11111111
- dragon
U.S. Top 20
- secret
- 123456
- password
- qwerty123
- qwerty1
- 123456789
- password1
- 12345678
- 12345
- abc123
- qwerty
- iloveyou
- Password
- baseball
- 1234567
- 111111
- princess
- football
- monkey
- sunshine
Canada Top 20
- qwerty123
- 123456
- qwerty1
- password
- 123456789
- 12345678
- qwerty
- 9-11-1961
- secret
- 12345
- password1
- abc123
- 1234567890
- Owerty123
- Password
- 1234567
- iloveyou
- hockey
- 123123
- canada
Mexico Top 20
- 123456
- 123456789
- qwerty123
- qwerty1
- 12345678
- 12345
- password
- 1234567890
- 1234567
- qwerty
- pokemon
- contrase
- alejandro
- america
- hola
- carlos
- Qwerty123
- Qwerty1!
- 123123
- 1234561
Do any of your preferred passwords appear on this list? It's amusing to see "hockey" make the list in Canada, but we're scratching our heads about the meaning behind "9-11-1961." It could be a date in various formats, but Google hasn't provided any clear answers for why it's a common password.
The passwords broken down from corporate sources also reveal a few peculiar choices. In the U.S., the password "aaron431" is ranked the fifth most popular. But we're not entirely sure why that's the case. It could be due to corporate password leaks from a large company skewing the data. If "aaron431" was chosen as the default password for a huge corporation that experienced a massive breach, it would make sense to see it more frequently.
Share your thoughts in the comments if you've found anything humorous in the data.
In the future, techniques to promote the use of more secure passwords, such as educating users about the consequences of weak passwords, could potentially reduce the prevalence of easily-guessable passwords like those found in the NordPass list.
As technology evolves, we can expect to see advanced methods of password protection, such as biometric authentication or multi-factor authentication, becoming more commonplace, thereby strengthening digital security.
