No, you are definitely not the only one who thought “letmein” was going to cut it.
Let’s start with the list in all its glory. Here it is from SplashData -- the most popular passwords from 2014:
- 123456
- password
- 12345
- 12345678
- qwerty
- 123456789
- 1234
- baseball
- dragon
- football
- 1234567
- monkey
- letmein
- abc123
- 111111
- mustang
- access
- shadow
- master
- michael
- superman
- 696969
- 123123
- batman
- trustno1
It’s time to get your life together.
Listen to this newsbit from CNN Money, published one year ago: Hackers have exposed the personal information of 110 million Americans -- roughly half of the nation's adults -- in the last 12 months alone. Yikes.
So get your passwords up to speed. Create and use strong passwords or pass-phrases that contain a mixture of upper and lower case letters, at least one number, and at least one symbol/special character. And please, PLEASE don't use the same password/pass-phrase for all of your accounts and logins. We are begging you.
Other ways to secure your stuff:
- Use two factor authentication (Gmail user? Learn how to turn it on right now)
- Use -- and regularly update -- anti-virus, malware, and spyware software
- Never provide personal or financial information in response to an email, even if it appears legitimate
- Do not click on links or download attachments in email messages you receive from people you do not know or content that seems suspicious
- Use unique passwords for all accounts. Your personal email password should not be the key to unlocking your bank account!
- Let’s do that last bullet one more time: Use unique passwords for ALL of your accounts.
![]() | Debbi Blyth: Chief Information Security Officer. Colorado native (almost!), beach lover, deep sea diver, Sunday school teacher. I'm the queen of keeping Colorado safe online. Find me on Twitter at @debbiblyth. |