Far too many people are using 'donald' as their password

[Tipup]

IT'S THAT TIME of year again, where we get to see what a hash (arf) people are making of their online security.

Yes, most people know in their hearts that passwords should have a mixture of numbers, letters and symbols and be unique to each service. But people are also lazy, and like things they can easily remember - or, it turns out, things they can type without needing to move their finger off a single line of the keyboard.

While it's no surprise that this year's top five overused password (via SplashID) contains old classics like "123456", "12345", "12345678" and - most securely of all - "123456789", it's the entries further up the list that are more interesting.   

At number 23: "donald". It might seem a stretch to link this to the President of the United States, if it weren't for the fact this was a new entry for 2018. And while other names feature heavily ("charlie" is at number 21), Donald isn't a name that's been fashionable for a fair old while - with apologies to Glover, Sutherland and Duck.

If it is indeed Trump-related, it feels quite fitting that the word "donald" will be forever associated with bad security given these immortal words he once said on the topic of cybersecurity during the 2016 presidential debates: "So we have to get very, very tough on cyber and cyberwarfare. It is — it is a huge problem. I have a son. He's ten years old. He has computers. He is so good with these computers, it's unbelievable. The security aspect of cyber is very, very tough. And maybe it's hardly doable."

Wise words, Mr President. Wise words.

Other popular password choices include "monkey", "sunshine", "iloveyou" and "password". Oh, and if you think you're clever by making yours "passw0rd", you're not: it comes in at #23. Get a password manager, already. µ