Interesting list of the 500 most common passwords used by stupid people. Unless YOUR password's on the list. I will amend this to the 500 most common passwords used by 'careless' people. Nah, you have to be pretty stupid to use one of these passwords.
Why?
Well, most password crackers start by running down this list. Then they go through the dictionary. ONLY when the find you've decided not to use a common word or name do they start the potentially length task of trying to crack your password through brute force efforts of trying every combination of upper and lower case, letters and punctuation marks. You can see how the difficult jumps by umpteen degrees.
I've said it before, I'll say it again. Take a person's name who made an impact upon you as a kid and spell said name backwards. Break up the syllables of the new word with a punctuation mark and capitalize the last letter. If you want to go another extra mile, add numbers to the start or the beginning. An easy way is to 'draw' the letter on your numeric keypad. Z would be 7895123. So, if the person who made an impact on me was Zia Mahmoud, the international bridge star, I could easily go with "a/iZ7895123". Mugford would become "drof+guM1475963".
Or you can take a starting word and then add it to the letter and numbers kind of thing. Let's say I want to use bank as my starting password and I bank at the Scotiabank. I could use bank%S987456321 while over at the Royal Bank I would use bank%R14789653. Now, using bank is stupid but make it a pet's name ... say bugsy ... and you get an easy to remember password system. I defy anybody to guess bugsy^S987456321 as a password anytime soon.
And best of all, you won't have to write down your password on a notepad beside the monitor, thus allowing visiting relatives into your business, if you know what I mean !?!?!
NOTE: Computer keypads have 789 at the top. Be aware that PHONE keypads and other kinds of keypads often have 123 at the top. Just sayin' ... so no complainin'.
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