Most common passwords of 2020 - if yours is on the list, you should change it immediately

Changing your online passwords regularly can be a pain, but it’s absolutely essential for keeping your personal and financial information safe from hackers and cybercriminals - especially at this time of year.

Millions of people will be scouring the internet looking for bargains in the Black Friday and Cyber Monday online sales bonanza with many using saved passwords for favourite retailer or website accounts.

Hackers use sophisticated technology to unlock these passwords and because many people use the same one for multiple accounts, you could be leaving your debit or credit card account open to attack.

If your password features on the list of most commonly used in 2020, stop what you’re doing and change it immediately - and make it something complex using a mix of numbers, letters and characters.

Faceless hackers use sophisticated technology to crack online passwords (Getty Images)

NordPass has published the 200 most common passwords used this year and revealed that the most frequently used is ‘123456’ - a step up on its 2019 ranking where it held the distinction of being the second most used of the year.

Although, on the annual SplashData, ‘Worst Passwords List’, it has held the top spot since 2013.

NordPass is a password management system that first launched in 2019, designed to help users organise their passwords and secure notes, keeping them in an encrypted password vault.

By keeping everything in a vault secured by a single password, users can create a unique, super-strong alphanumeric password for every online account.

NordPass is free to use, although a paid subscription version is available too.

Top 20 most commonly used passwords of 2020

1. 123456

2. 123456789

3. picture1

4. password

5. 12345678

6. 111111

7. 123123

8. 12345

9. 1234567890

10. Senha

11. 1234567

12. qwerty

13. Abc123

14. Million2

15. 000000

16. 1234

17. iloveyou

18. Aaron431

19. Password1

20. qqww1122

Popular names on the password list included Michael, Daniel, Charlie, Jordan, Michelle and Jennifer.

Writing about its findings in a blog post, NordPass said: “According to research, the majority of people use simple and easy-to-remember passwords, because it’s convenient. But the problem is that most memorable passwords are highly vulnerable to cracking. Less than half of the passwords (78 of them) were new to the 2020 ‘most popular’ list.”

You can view the full list of 200 most commonly used passwords on the NordPass website here.