The password '123456 remains the most popular on the internet, according to researchers of the German Hasso-Plattner-Institute of the University of Potsdam. The researchers investigated 215 million leaked identities of which 35 million were leaked this year.
The data comes from large data leaks such as those of Ashley Madison and Adobe and go back as far as 2011. Using the data the researchers were able to compile a list of the top 100 most popular passwords. With 10% the password '123456' was by far the most used one, followed by ''123456789' and '12345678' with 3.5% and 1.9% respectively. The passwords 'password' and 'qwerty' complete the top 5 with 1.85% and 0.95% respectively.
Besides passwords the researchers also analyzed email addresses. With 40 million addresses Hotmail.com is the most popular email provider followed by Gmail with 36 million addresses. Yahoo.com completes the top 3 with 25 million email adresses.
