The most commonly used password is a shocker

Staff writer

If "123456" is your password, you might want to think about changing it.

A survey carried out by the UK's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) analysed passwords belonging to accounts worldwide that had been breached.

The top 10 most common passwords were:

1. 123456
2. 123456789
3. qwerty
4. password
5. 111111
6. 12345678
7. abc123
8. 1234567
9. password1
10. 12345

The NCSC suggests people use three "random but memorable" terms in a password, to reduce the risk of having an account breached.

"Password re-use is a major risk that can be avoided -- nobody should protect sensitive data with something that can be guessed, like their first name, local football team or favourite band," Ian Levy, NCSC Technical Director, said.

"Using hard-to-guess passwords is a strong first step and we recommend combining three random but memorable words. Be creative and use words memorable to you, so people can't guess your password," he added.

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