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'Donald' Makes It on Annual Worst Passwords List The President's first name came in as the 23rd most frequently used password, behind old favorites such as 'monkey' and 'qwerty.'

By Michael Kan

entrepreneur daily

This story originally appeared on PCMag

via PC Mag

Whether you support President Trump or not, using his first name as your password isn't a good idea.

For the first time, "donald" cracked SplashData's annual top 100 list of worst passwords. "Sorry, Mr. President, but this is not fake news -- using your name or any common name as a password is a dangerous decision," SplashData CEO Morgan Slain said in a statement.

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The President's first name came in as the 23rd most frequently used password, behind old favorites such as "monkey" and "qwerty." SplashData, a password management app provider, compiled the list based on data from 5 million passwords that leaked online during the past year.

Sure, using someone's name for your login credentials can be easy to remember, but it can also make the password all too simple to crack. "Hackers have great success using celebrity names, terms from pop culture and sports, and simple keyboard patterns to break into accounts online because they know so many people are using those easy-to-remember combinations," Slain said.

"123456" and "password" still rank as the number one and number two most common passwords on SplashData's annual list.

And perhaps to no surprise, a lot of people like to use numbers to secure their accounts. Six of the top ten most frequently used passwords were simply strings of numbers.

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Although "donald" made SplashData's top 100 list this year, the name has been appearing as a common password for some time now. Back in 2008, "donald" was ranked as the 257th worst password, according to the now defunct password recovery provider What's My Pass.

Below are the top 25 worst passwords on SplashData's current list. If you're looking for tips on password management, you can find PCMag's recommendations here.

1. 123456
2. password
3. 123456789
4. 12345678
5. 12345
6. 111111
7. 1234567
8. sunshine
9. qwerty
10. iloveyou
11. princess
12. admin
13. welcome
14. 666666
15. abc123
16. football
17. 123123
18. monkey
19. 654321
20. !@#$%^&*
21. charlie
22. aa123456
23. donald
24. password1
25. qwerty123

Michael Kan

Reporter

Michael has been a PCMag reporter since October 2017. He previously covered tech news in China from 2010 to 2015, before moving to San Francisco to write about cybersecurity.

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