NordPass Released the 200 Most Used Passwords. People Really Pick These?

NordPass, from the fine folks who brought you NordVPN, just released their annual study on passwords, and it only confirms what we’ve been hearing for years: people are truly awful about picking lazy, stupid passwords.

How can this be? We’re a quarter of the way through the 21st century. We’ve been online for ages. What excuse could there be for 123456 being the most-used password? Time? Ease of remembering? Bullshit.

Use a password manager, and you can have a much more secure password, and it won’t take any longer or more focus than counting to 123456.

why use a password manager

First, let’s go over what it is. A password manager is a digital vault that holds the keys to all your accounts and websites. Each key, or password, is uniquely generated and highly secure. They can be incredibly long and complex, which means they’re much harder for a hacker to crack and much, much harder for a person to guess.

Just look at number five on NordPass’ most-used passwords list: qwerty123. A gentle message to the people using that: yeah, that’s cute, but you’re not as clever as you think you are.

You sign into your password manager account to add, edit, and remove your websites’ assorted passwords. None are reused (ideally), so a breach of one doesn’t endanger all your other website accounts.

When you come to a page or entry form on a website asking for your email or username, plus your password, you click in the open field, and your password manager will automatically enter that website account’s password. No need to remember a complicated string of gobbledygook.

I’ve been using password managers for years, and some of my passwords look like a secret code thought up by the Zodiac Killer. Ultra secure, but ultra complicated. But that doesn’t matter, because I only need to remember my master password for my password manager account. The password manager itself remembers all the rest.

There are tons of solid password managers out there, many of which offer free versions. In fact, I’m just going to keep peppering this story with them. Pick a card, any card.

Funny enough, the only password manager of these five I’ve highlighted here that I haven’t used (yet) is NordPass. Given that I’m such a fan of Nord VPN, though, I’m convinced of its security and transparency.

Give one or another a test drive. Download the free version, and if the peace of mind of upping your password game is worth it and you want access to the password manager across all your devices, I’d say it’s worth a few bucks per month to buy yourself out of some worry.