The 35 Worst Passwords of 2013—And How to Fix Them

Posted by: Best Password Managers on November 8, 2013 Under: How To |

It doesn’t get much worse than getting hacked, especially if it’s because of poor password hygiene. After careful study, we have discovered the 35 worst passwords of 2013—and how to fix them. There’s a reason the ones we found are the worst passwords: they are default router passwords for some of the most common routers in use today.

You’d be surprised how many people don’t update or change their default router password. And the list of the worst passwords you see below come as the default password with routers from Belkin, Cisco, D-Link, F5, Linksys, Oracle, and Netgear, along with some telecom companies such as Vonage, Nokia, Motorola, and others.

1. MiniAP
2. admin
3. diamond
4. cmaker
5. changeme
6. attack
7. changeme2
8. NULL
9. public/private/secret
10. cisco
11. Cisco
12. _Cisco
13. blender
14. hsadb
15. wlsedb
16. system
17. D-Link
18. password
19. user
20. private
21. default
22. 1234
23. tivonpw
24. 5777364
25. 21241036
26. sys/change_on_install
27. router
28. VTech
29. 9999
30. m1122
31. telecom
32. telecom
33. nokai
34. motorola
35. scmchangeme

If you find that you’re using one (or more) of the worst passwords of 2013, it behooves you to fix them as soon as possible. We strongly encourage you to change your password. Don’t know where to start? Want to know how security guru’s keep track of and securely manage passwords?

The solution is actually quite simple: Use a password manager.

There are many password manager options to choose from, so it can be difficult to know which one is best for you. Truth be told, the best password managers will include a secure password generator. This feature is how you can fix your bad passwords.

We like RoboForm a lot and highly recommend this product to our readers. RoboForm includes a password generator feature that lets you create passwords up to 512 characters long for the strongest security possible.

Another great option for Mac users is SplashID Safe, which we’ve given a strong 5-star rating as one of the best password managers available today. Regardless, any of these options are a great way to fix weak password problems.