I just read a great article about passwords – they analysed 28 000 passwords that were stolen from a US website and this is what they found :

“It found that 16 percent took a first name as a password, often their own or one of their children, according to the study published by Information Week.

Another 14 percent relied on the easiest keyboard combinations to remember such as "1234" or "12345678." For those using English keyboards, "QWERTY", was popular. Likewise, "AZERTY" scored with people with European keyboards.

Five percent of the stolen passwords were names of television shows or stars popular with young people like "hannah," inspired by singer Hannah Montana. "Pokemon," "Matrix," and "Ironman" were others.

The word "password," or easy to guess variations like "password1," accounted for four percent.

Three percent of the passwords expressed attitudes like "I don’t care," "Whatever," "Yes" or "No."

There were sentimental choices – "Iloveyou" – and their opposite -"Ihateyou."

 

My additional 5 cents on this – not only must you use a nice long password but also dont use the SAME password for each and every website that you visit.

Its amazing how many people use the same password again and again and again – all it takes is one slip up ….

So if you are reading this and you know that your password is on this above list – CHANGE IT !!!