The 25 Most Popular (and Worst) Passwords of 2011

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Laurence Dutton

Here’s a pro tip: If your password is “password,” it’s probably time to change it.

SplashData, a company that offers a “complete password management and security solution,” culled from data stolen and posted online by hackers some of the most awesomely bad (and yet commonly used) passwords of all time. And while the research is for 2011, this isn’t the first such list–if you’ve seen one of these before, you’ll probably notice several culprits reappearing from years past.

The 25 most popular passwords in SplashData’s 2011 list:

  1. password
  2. 123456
  3. 12345678
  4. qwerty
  5. abc123
  6. monkey
  7. 1234567
  8. letmein
  9. trustno1
  10. dragon
  11. baseball
  12. 111111
  13. iloveyou
  14. master
  15. sunshine
  16. ashley
  17. bailey
  18. passw0rd
  19. shadow
  20. 123123
  21. 654321
  22. superman
  23. qazwsx
  24. michael
  25. Football

Let’s go over what makes a good password again: You’ll want to include different types of characters, numbers and special characters in conjunction with each other. The longer your magic passphrase is, the better. Separate words with spaces if possible (underscores work, too). And while this ought to be a no-brainer, don’t use the same password for everything.

Last but not least? Your dog’s name’s a definite no-no…unless, of course, it happens to be Mr8@Mxyzptlk76%5.

Erica Ho is a reporter at TIME. Find her on Twitter at @ericamho and Google+. You can also continue the discussion on TIME’s Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIME.