Approximately six years have passed since the virtual private network provider NordVPN began analyzing data breaches for the most frequently used passwords, and the situation remains just as dire as when they first started.
Every year, the company scours the dark web for passwords that have been stolen through malware or exposed in data breaches to identify the most prevalent passwords, and this year’s findings are as disheartening as ever …
According to NordVPN, they examined 2.5TB of credentials from 44 different countries.
In collaboration with NordStellar, we reviewed and analyzed a 2.5TB database sourced from various publicly available platforms, including dark web resources. No personal data was acquired or bought for this study.
We categorized the data to facilitate analysis based on origin countries. However, our focus was strictly on statistical information, ensuring that no personal user data was included in this research.
We investigated passwords that were either stolen via malware or leaked from data breaches. Typically, these were exposed alongside email addresses, allowing us to differentiate between corporate and personal login credentials based on domain names.
Despite the convenience offered by password managers to create strong, unique passwords for every site and service, the top 10 password list still remains unchanged:
Even the 200th entry on the list is ‘letmein’ …
Apple has long provided password management tools across its devices, starting with the original Keychain app and continuing with the standalone Passwords app introduced in iOS 18.
Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash
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