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The worst passwords of 2013




With online security and privacy becoming more crucial than ever, the importance of a secure, hard to crack password cannot be overstated.

However, a list of 2013’s most popular passwords shows Internet users just don’t get it.

According to password management company SplashData, the top three worst passwords of last year were “123456,” “password” and “12345678” – which can best be described as sitting ducks for online scam artists.

It is the first time "password" had lost its number-one position as the most common (worst) password, swapping places with its numerical rival.

Related: Use your heartbeat as your password

In third place was "12345678," unchanged from 2012, while "qwerty" and "abc123" came in fourth and fifth. "iloveyou" climbed two spots to number nine.

Words like "jesus," "football" and "ninja" dropped off the list in 2013 after being popular in 2012 and earlier.

This year’s list had a large number of Adobe Systems-themed words following a major security breach involving the company.

Related: Millions of passwords stolen in Adobe breach

"Seeing passwords like 'adobe123' and 'photoshop' on this list (for the first time) offers a good reminder not to base your password on the name of the website or application you are accessing," said SplashData chief executive Morgan Slain, whose company markets password management apps.

SplashData encouraged users to opt for "passphrases" - a bunch of random words, numbers and characters, like "smiles_like_skip?" - that are easy to remember, but harder for online scam artists to crack.

Related: The riskiest places to use your credit card

Here are the 25 most common passwords of 2013, along with the change in rank from last year.

1.  123456 (Up 1)
2.  password (Down 1)
3.  12345678 (Unchanged)
4.  qwerty (Up 1)
5.  abc123 (Down 1)
6.  123456789 (New)
7.  111111 ( Up 2)
8.  1234567 (Up 5)
9.  iloveyou (Up 2)
10.  adobe123 (New)
11.  123123 (Up 5)
12.  admin (New)
13.  1234567890 (New)
14.  letmein (Down 7)
15.  photoshop (New)
16.  1234 (New)
17.  monkey (Down 11)
18.  shadow (Unchanged)
19.  sunshine (Down 5)
20.  12345 (New)
21.  password1 (up 4)
22.  princess (New)
23.  azerty (New)
24.  trustno1 (Down12)
25.  000000 (New)