LinkedIn Hack Reveals More Bad User Passwords
Oops! They did it again. Hackers hacked into a social media network and spilled all of the users’ login credentials like milk from a cereal bowl.
LinkedIn was the unfortunate victim of a security breach earlier this month, and although the social network for professionals was quick to respond to the incident, which saw 6.5 million user credentials exposed, it revealed the danger users expose themselves to by creating insecure passwords.
The worst passwords of 2011 should’ve made this point clear already, but here we are again, with another set of predictable, obvious passwords.
MSNBC.com compiled the 30 worst passwords from a sampling of the hacked logins. Here they are:
| Ranking | Password Phrase | Number of Times Appeared |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | link | 941 |
| 2 | 1234 | 435 |
| 3 | work | 294 |
| 4 | god | 214 |
| 5 | job | 205 |
| 6 | 12345 | 179 |
| 7 | angel | 176 |
| 8 | :the | 143 |
| 9 | ilove | 133 |
| 10 | sex | 119 |
| 11 | jesus | 95 |
| 12 | connect | 91 |
| 13 | Fu** | 85 |
| 14 | monkey | 78 |
| 15 | 123456 | 76 |
| 16 | master | 72 |
| 17 | B***h | 65 |
| 18 | D**k | 60 |
| 19 | michael | 52 |
| 20 | jordan | 48 |
| 21 | dragon | 46 |
| 22 | soccer | 45 |
| 23 | Killer | 32 |
| 24 | 654321 | 32 |
| 25 | pepper | 31 |
| 26 | Devil | 30 |
| 27 | princess | 29 |
| 28 | 1234567 | 28 |
| 29 | iloveyou | 26 |
| 30 | career | 26 |
Surprisingly, “password” didn’t make the list this time. “Career” for a career-oriented web site, however, is a cringeworthy selection.
So what makes a strong password? Bob Sullivan of MSNBC offers this tidbit:
[T]hink of a sentence that you can remember, and take the first letter of every word in the sentence as your password. For example: My daughter Julie was born on November 1 would yield a password of "MdJwboN1." Throw in an exclamation point at the end to show your love for your daughter, and you have a pretty strong, unique password.
It also doesn’t hurt to change your password regularly. If you’ve been using the same password for the past five years, it might be time to make a switch.
