How secure are your passwords? (and therefore your accounts!)

Over this past weekend it was breaking news that Apple's survey website had been hacked and a collection of accounts and passwords were then posted on the internet. Fox News Twitter account had been hacked and erroneous news stories posted.

If the passwords of these giants can be obtained by serious hackers, how safe are the passwords you use on your online accounts from the identity thieves? Despite numerous warnings about easy passwords, or the need to change passwords regularly, many people still ignore the warnings.

A network software security company found that 1 percent of the 32 million people it studied had used “123456” as a password. The second-most-popular password was “12345.” Others in the top 20 included “qwerty,” “abc123” and “princess.”

The most popular (and easily hacked) passwords still used today:
1. Your birthday
2. 123456
3. qwerty
4. abc123
5. letmein
6. monkey
7. myspace1
8. password1
9. blink182
10.(your first name, or any part of your name)
11. 12345
12 123456789
13. Password (with and without capitalization)
14. iloveyou
15. princess
16. jesus (with and without capitalization)
17. jesus saves
18. 1234567
19 12345678
20. abc123
21. babygirl
22. monkey
23. Lovely
25. michael
26. Ashley
27. 654321
28. Qwerty
29. (the name of the website you're on)
30. letmein

The advice is to stay away from common and easy passwords, especially for your critical online accounts that have sensitive and/or financial information about you.

I read a hint somewhere that can be helpful: Take a sentence and turn it into a password. Something like "This little piggy went to market" might become "tlpWENT2m". (Now that I've given you this example, please don't use it, compose your own creative sentence). You might find an online password creator tool easier if you have several passwords you need to create.

PLUS, when setting your "secret questions" for an email reminder of your password, use your own questions or answer only the ones that most people wouldn't know about you.

Yes, it may feel aggravating to have to remember different passwords for different accounts, however, compare that to having your account hacked and your identity violated, or your money stolen.




Conversation is encouraged and expected. However, moderation of comments is necessary to prevent spam, profanity or litigious content, and off-topic commentary.