The easiest passwords to hack have been revealed… so don’t use them

No, it's not 'password,' actually.

Look lads, we know, we've all got shit passwords for some our social media accounts. There just isn't enough hours in the day to come up with a password that's got lower case letters, upper case letters, a symbol, a number, and the blood of your first born child. It's difficult and we've got better things to be doing. However, no matter how irritating it is having to come up with all these convoluted passwords, it's even more irritating getting hacked and needing to cancel your accounts, contact customer services, and ensure none of your sensitive information has been breached. So, in order to make sure that you're not using the most obvious, common, and willing-to-be-hacked passwords in the world, the lads over at the UK's National Cyber Security (NCSC) have released some of the easiest passwords to hack, so you can avoid them. The research was specific to the UK, but c'mon, Ireland's not that far away, surely there'll be a bit of crossover here. '123456' was the most commonly used password, followed by '123456789' and 'qwerty.' After that was the word 'password' and 1111111. Inspired. Among the most commonly used names in passwords were 'Ashley,' 'Michael,'  'Daniel,' 'Jessica' and 'Charlie' with 'Blink 182' being the most used artist in a password. Dr Ian Levy, NCSC Technical Director, said:

“We understand that cyber security can feel daunting to a lot of people, but the NCSC has published lots of easily applicable advice to make you much less vulnerable. “Password re-use is a major risk that can be avoided - nobody should protect sensitive data with something that can be guessed, like their first name, local football team or favourite band. “Using hard-to-guess passwords is a strong first step and we recommend combining three random but memorable words. Be creative and use words memorable to you, so people can’t guess your password.”

You can check out the full list, or learn more about how to protect your cyber security, here.