On Sunday, hackers exposed usernames and passwords stored in the Gawker Media user database.
The Wall Street Journal analyzed the leaked data and produced a list of the top 50 commonly used Gawker passwords. Believe it or not, the list is rife with security no-nos, such as ascending numbers and easy-to-guess words.
- 123456
- password
- 12345678
- lifehack
- qwerty
- abc123
- 111111
- monkey
- consumer
- 12345
- 0
- letmein
- trustno1
It is startling to note that over 3,000 users chose "123456" as their login password, according to the Journal. Almost as jarring: Nearly 2,000 people went with "password," and more than 1,000 users decided that "12345678" was a secure choice. The list also includes "gizmodo" (#19), "starwars" (#23), "f---you" (#31), "gawker" (#40) and "internet" (#50).
The hack has been affecting other websites: Twitter was hit by a spam attack that is believed to be linked to the Gawker hack. According to All Things D, "LinkedIn has temporarily disabled the accounts of any users whose email addresses turned up in the public database of hacked accounts. It's asking those users to reset their passwords." Given the simplicity of some of the most popular passwords, let's hope that nobody recycled these passwords for email or online bank accounts.
Visit the Journal to view the complete list of passwords, as well as interesting patterns in the leaked data. To see if your Gawker account was exposed in Sunday's hack, visit Slate and enter your email address into their Gawker widget.