10 Most Common Passwords In Texas – Is Yours On The List?

A recent study by Password Manager ID'd the most popular or most commonly used passwords in Texas and they are pretty dumb. How is/are your passwords?

The Password Manager study wasn't done just in Texas but the passwords it found most often were so obvious. (1234 ... really?) No wonder people get hacked so often.

Other really obvious ones included pet names, birthdays and local spots, all of which can be pretty easily ascertained. Especially by people who are around you a lot or know you.

Every time you turn around, you're either changing a password or thinking up a new one. For extra security, rules usually require a certain number of characters, letters, (some capitalized), numbers and symbols.

READ MORE: Picking A Perfect Password

For security purposes, it's a good system but we're humans ... lazy humans. We stick with what is easy to remember and/or easiest to type. Even though bank accounts, social security numbers or top secret business strategies may be at risk, we'll still go with our favorite "whatever". Snoopy, Metallica, KLAQ ... you get the point.

What Are The 10 Most Popular Passwords?

1. 123456
2. 111111
3. admin
4. qwerty
5. password
6. 123456789
7. 123123
8. 12345
9. 000000
10. iloveyou

The numbers, jeez. What hacker isn't going to try those first? The last one, "iloveyou" isn't bad ... phrases are actually recommended to confuse hackers and be easy to remember ... it's just that everybody uses that particular one so it's an easy guess.

How To Create A Strong Password

Again, phrases work well - mydogisinsane for example. Even better, swap a number for a letter like 3 for E or zero for O and don't follow the usual order of capital letter, password, special character. Doing that changes mydogisinsane to my-d0gis*Insan3.

If you use a landmark as your password, make it a landmark that's somewhere else. For an El Pasoan, a hacker might try "scenic drive" or "segundo". Landmarks that are far away are less obvious ... whitehouse, 6thstreet, riverwalk, etc.

Avoid your favorites. What crook, (who also listens to KLAQ), trying to hack me wouldn't take a stab at "Harley", "2ndamendment", or "Texaslegalizemarijuanadammit"? How much you wanna bet Charlie Clark's password is "O-raaah-lay"?

For more help picking a new password, click here or go to Password Managers website.