If you haven't changed your online passwords in a while now could be a good time to log in and switch things around. It seems that millions of us are still using ludicrously simple codes that are making the lives of cyber crooks far too simple. In fact, according to new research from the team at NordPass, some popular passwords are so simple that online thieves can crack them in less than a second.

Incredibly, it appears that millions of us are still using codes such as “123456” with that arrangement of very non-unique numbers now the most common password in both the UK and worldwide.

In fact, almost a third (31%) of the world's most popular passwords consist of purely numerical sequences, such as “123456789,” “12345,” “000000,” and others.

The word “password” (yes, people really do use it) continues to be massively popular despite warnings last year that it was being frequently misused and could leave accounts in danger of attack.

Another common mistake is to use football teams as your code. Football remains a common inspiration for internet users’ passwords, with teams’ or players’ names remaining popular. As in 2022, this year, the British again went for “liverpool,” “arsenal,” “chelsea”, and “rangers.” If you use any of these then it's thinking about changing things up - as many as 70% of the passwords in this year’s global list can be cracked in less than a second.

TOP 5 MOST USED UK PASSWORDS

1. 123456

2. password

3. qwerty

4. liverpool

5. 123456789

While experts say that passwords created using dictionary words are incredibly easy to crack, internet users refuse to believe so. Interestingly, according to NordPass British people tend to choose passwords related to animals or mythical creatures, such as “monkey” or “dragon.”

Instead of improving password creation habits, internet users have gone in another direction by sticking to already pre-configured passwords. Invisible last year, the word “admin” made its grand entry to this year’s global list and ensured itself top positions in all researched countries, except the UK.

“With the terrifying risks password users encounter, alternative methods in online authentication are now essential. Passkey technology, considered the most promising innovation to replace passwords, is successfully paving its way, gaining trust among individuals and progressive companies worldwide. Being among the first password managers to offer this technology, we see people are curious to test new things, as long as this helps eliminate the hassle of passwords,” says Tomas Smalakys, the CTO of NordPass.