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‘starwars’ debuts on list of 2015’s worst passwords

Despite the fact the World Wide Web has been around for more than 25 years at this point, most people are still using the same collection of unoriginal passwords. According to SplashData, a software developer that maintains its own password manager, and its fifth annual look at the Internet’s worst passwords, “123456” and “password” remain the two most popular passwords in use on the Web.

Rounding out the top five are similarly easy-to-guess crypts like “12345678,” “qwerty” and “12345”. To compile its list, SplashData looked at the two million passwords that were leaked in 2015. New to the annual report are a bevy of Star Wars-related passphrases like “starwars,” “princess” and “solo”.

If there’s an upside to this story, it’s that text passwords will likely soon be a thing of the past. According to a survey of 308 Internet security experts conducted in 2015 by SecureAuth, a company that develops two-factor authentication software, 91 percent of respondents believe text passwords will be phased out over the next 10 years.

We’re already seeing companies like Google make an effort to eliminate the password. The search giant recently unveiled a smartphone-based two-factor authentication system, while closer to home, Nymi, a biometrics wearable startup based in Toronto, wants to use people’s heart beats to log in to devices in the future.

In the meantime, with an abundance of well-designed password managers — including ones like Canadian-made 1Password and Dashlane, which just last week was the recipient of a major update — it has never been easier to avoid making an easy-to-guess password in the first place.

Check out the full list below.

RANK PASSWORD CHANGE FROM 2014
1 123456 Unchanged
2 password Unchanged
3 12345678 Up 1
4 qwerty Up 1
5 12345 Down 2
6 123456789 Unchanged
7 football Up 3
8 1234 Down 1
9 1234567 Up 2
10 baseball Down 2
11 welcome New
12 1234567890 New
13 abc123 Up 1
14 111111 Up 1
15 1qaz2wsx New
16 dragon Down 7
17 master Up 2
18 monkey Down 6
19 letmein Down 6
20 login New
21 princess New
22 qwertyuiop New
23 solo New
24 passw0rd New
25 starwars New

[source]SplashData[/source][via]The Globe and Mail, Engadget[/via]

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