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Seven years since our first top 200 common passwords list, we’ve witnessed how credential trends have changed — and what has remained the same. Each year, we rediscover people’s tendency to opt for weak passwords that prioritize convenience over security.

However, this year, we decided to ask ourselves: How do different generations treat their password use? From the silent generation to the “zoomers,” we analyzed which passwords are the most common among different user groups. As it turns out, bad password habits are trendy no matter how old you are.

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[-] HubertManne@piefed.social 3 points 6 days ago

Decided to click on some countries and im pretty sure some of irelands ones are for tv shows.

[-] Sibbo@sopuli.xyz 26 points 1 week ago

Always make sure to pick a popular password people, you don't want your hacker to think you are a special snowflake.

[-] smeg@feddit.uk 13 points 1 week ago

Can't run the risk of being fingerprinted, privacy and anonymity first!

[-] rekabis@lemmy.ca 18 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Am I unreasonably disappointed to not find “Correct Horse Battery Staple” - or some variation thereof - in that list?

[-] ZoteTheMighty@lemmy.zip 17 points 1 week ago

P@ssw0rd is ahead of Password. Times they are a changin

[-] echodot@feddit.uk 8 points 1 week ago

It'll just be that a lot of password systems insist on a number in a special character.

[-] akwd169@lemmy.sdf.org 6 points 1 week ago

Most places force you to put a number and a special character in there now, the number of places you can get away with just a word for a password is dwindling

[-] purplemonkeymad@programming.dev 5 points 1 week ago

I know a couple of people who think they are clever for these kinds of substitutions, I can probably use this fact on them. Not sure they will change their ways after, they kinda oppose any change.

[-] ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 16 points 1 week ago

Top 3 are still the same from previous years

  1. 12345
  2. 123456
  3. 12345678

It’s official: “123456” has once again claimed the controversial title of the world’s most common password — and one of the weakest. That marks six out of seven years this password has topped our chart

[-] HubertManne@piefed.social 2 points 6 days ago

oop. looks like I need to got nine characters!

[-] lemmie689@lemmy.sdf.org 8 points 1 week ago

How can I get to Sesame Street?

[-] mctoasterson@reddthat.com 3 points 1 week ago

Except among Zoomers, with whom the most common password is 67

[-] Jack@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Your top list is for Gen Z's where #1 is "12345, combining for everyone #1 is 123456.

[-] SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 13 points 1 week ago

12345

That's amazing. I've got the same combination on my luggage!

[-] PerogiBoi@lemmy.ca 9 points 1 week ago

All I see is *****

[-] thingsiplay@beehaw.org 13 points 1 week ago

Looking at the different countries is also funny. The only password I'm not surprised about is admin, because that's probably the default for most devices maybe? Unless user changes it manually.

But my question is, are these only "hacked" passwords? Because those who are not hacked, you don't know what passwords they have. So this is a bit of bias here, right?

[-] t3rmit3@beehaw.org 7 points 1 week ago

But my question is, are these only “hacked” passwords? Because those who are not hacked, you don’t know what passwords they have. So this is a bit of bias here, right?

No, that's not how these are obtained. Password dumps are from attackers breaching a site's user database and dumping their credentials, usually by phishing administrators' logins. Attackers are brute-forcing passwords anymore except on a one-off, very rare basis. Here's a list of publicly-known password dumps, and you can see details about where they came from: https://haveibeenpwned.com/PwnedWebsites

[-] thingsiplay@beehaw.org 5 points 1 week ago

Ah right, that makes sense. I know that site, but didn't think of. I know not the smartes in the town.^^

I also wonder if people do more secure passwords for important services. Or do they treat it the same? My parents always used their birthday as password, so they do not forget it. Which not much more secure than 1234.

[-] t3rmit3@beehaw.org 3 points 1 week ago

I also wonder if people do more secure passwords for important services.

In my experience, most people have at most 2-3 passwords, and some do choose a "more secure" one for things like banking and work. Very few people use a password manager.

[-] Creat@discuss.tchncs.de 5 points 1 week ago

Thankfully this isn't allowed for new devices being sold in the EU anymore. They are required to have a per-device individual password now. Hopefully this effectively causes the practice to at least become much less common globally. After all, if you've setup the needed manufacturing steps, there's little sense in skipping them depending on a target region.

[-] smeg@feddit.uk 4 points 1 week ago

You didn't fill in the survey when the password inspector sent you that email? Rude!

[-] DavidDoesLemmy@aussie.zone 11 points 1 week ago

Thankfully my password, hunter2, isn't in there.

[-] Duke_Nukem_1990@feddit.org 5 points 1 week ago

Why would a string of * be in there?

[-] echodot@feddit.uk 8 points 1 week ago

For the longest time the admin password for the router at work was PasswordReset.124, the useless penetration testers didn't even pick up on it.

I've changed it to something actually random and then, following established industry standard security practises, somebody else has gone and written it on a post-it note, and stuck it to the router. So we're all fine now.

I'm extremely tempted to "hack" the network and bring it down only to be the hero that brings it back up after a few hours of non-productivity. But I feel like if they found out that might be a firing offence.

[-] Duke_Nukem_1990@feddit.org 7 points 1 week ago

Especially now that you committed it to this federated website.

[-] pruwybn@discuss.tchncs.de 8 points 1 week ago

Long passwords are more secure which is why I chose PasswordAdminQwertyAbcdefg1234567890987654321

[-] glibg@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 week ago

theworldinyourhand

Really? is that from something?

[-] Sims@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 week ago

..a super prolific autistic account hoarder ?

[-] HappyFrog@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 1 week ago

Damn, doesn't load for me :/

[-] Sims@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 week ago

Good news everyone ! "top 200 most common passwords" isn't in the list, so we can keep using that one !

[-] echodot@feddit.uk 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

There was a post on here a while ago about the most popular four digit PIN numbers. I think the top five were

1234
7890
1212
1111
And 1701

We're are all so original

[-] blimthepixie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 5 days ago

No 8008 on the list?!

[-] AAA@feddit.org 3 points 1 week ago

Kinda hard to be original with four digit PINs. Of course there's some worse choices than others, but 9999 possible combinations really limit creativity.

[-] bryndos@fedia.io 3 points 1 week ago

do they account for the circumstances?

most public wifi login pages get: u: abc@def.com p: qwerty

from me.

I assume those types of services get breached all the time and no one cares. I think they just want plausible deniability on acceptable use of the wifi.

[-] SanctimoniousApe@lemmings.world 2 points 1 week ago

Methodology

The Top 200 Most Common Passwords report is the result of a joint effort between NordPass and NordStellar, prepared in collaboration with independent researchers specializing in cybersecurity incidents. Recent public data breaches and dark web repositories were analyzed from September 2024 to September 2025 to identify statistically aggregated data. No personal data was acquired or purchased for this research.

Okay, so how valid is this really if they're only using those passwords that were hacked?

[-] t3rmit3@beehaw.org 9 points 1 week ago

It's very valid. The password dumps they're analyzing aren't based on attackers brute-force, they're based on attackers breaching sites' backends and dumping the user databases. Some of these are sites with millions of records, and when you look at credential-stuffing lists (which are aggregate lists of currently-accessible accounts using previously-breached credential pairs), it adds millions more.

Sort this list by year, and you can see there's tens of millions of leaked passwords in 2025 alone: https://haveibeenpwned.com/PwnedWebsites

[-] SanctimoniousApe@lemmings.world 5 points 1 week ago

That makes sense, thank you.

this post was submitted on 22 Nov 2025
70 points (98.6% liked)

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