According to the new research by security firm NordPass, the most popular password in the Philippines is 123456. Moreover, it is the top password in 43 countries out of 50 analyzed, and is also the most popular one worldwide.
These are the top 20 most common passwords in the Philippines:
- 123456
- 123456789
- password
- 12345
- iloveyou
- qwerty
- 1234567890
- 12345678
- pogiako
- qwertyuiop
- secret
- 987654321
- qwerty123
- abc123
- superman
- mahalkita
- 654321
- pokemon
- princess
- asdfghjkl
Overall, the Philippines password list has similar trends as many countries.
- Easy number combinations, such as the winning “123456”, are popular everywhere in the world. In fact, “123456” was the most popular password in 43 out of the 50 countries analysed, however, the top passwords in the remaining seven countries were not that much different. In India the top password was the word “password”, Indonesia — “12345”, Japan — “password”, Portugal — “12345”, Spain — “12345”, Thailand — “12345”, Ukraine — “qwerty”.
- “Qwerty” and variations of it, or the localized versions of qwerty (for example, “qwertz” in Germany) are also popular in all analyzed countries.
- Loving and positive words, such as “mahalkita”, “iloveyou”, “iloveu”,”magandaako”, “mahalko”, “lovely” and others were very common.
- Entertainment had a high influence on the Filipino’s passwords too. “spongebob”, “pokemon”, “superman”, “naruto”, and so on.
- Names were also very popular in these lists in every country. Some of the most popular names in the Philippines were “michael”, “joshua”, “and “nicole”.
The NordPass research also illustrated how weak the top passwords are indicating the time it would take the hacker to crack that password. While the “Time to crack” measure is indicative, and depends on various technological aspects, it’s a good reference point on how poor these passwords are.
Overall, in the Philippines, 101 passwords out of the 200 can be cracked in less than a second. That’s 50.5%, whereas globally, the percentage is 84.5%.
“Unfortunately, the passwords keep getting weaker and people still don’t maintain proper password hygiene,” says Jonas Karklys, CEO of NordPass.
“It’s important to understand that passwords are the gateway to our digital lives, and with us spending more and more time online, it’s becoming enormously important to take better care of our cybersecurity.”
Karklys advised to follow a few simple steps in order to improve password hygiene:
- If you found your password on the list, make sure to change it to a unique and strong password. Ideally, use a password generator online or in your password manager app to create a truly complex one.
- Store your passwords in a password manager. Nowadays, an average person has around 100 accounts, therefore, it would be impossible to remember all the passwords if they are indeed unique and complex. Password managers are a great solution for that, however, make sure to use a trustworthy, reliable, and, ideally, third-party audited provider.
- Use multi-factor authentication. Whether it’s biometric authentication, phone message, or a physical key, it’s always a good idea to add an additional security layer on top of your password.
