Gawker's hacked data shows '123456' most popular password on site

The massive hack of Gawker Media's commenter database shows that the more things change, the more they remain them same. Despite warnings about strong passwords, end users continue to use the simplest passwords possible.

The Wall Street Journal went through the leaked data, and found that the highest ranking password was "123456," used by over 3,000 of the 188,279 passwords that were decoded and made public.

Amazingly, the second highest total was for "password," at about 1,900, and about 1,200 or so folks picked "12345678." Indeed, "12345678" is stronger than "123456," but not much. Some folks also thought they were being clever, using "Gizmodo" and "Kotaku" (Gawker properties) as well as "Gawker."

If possible, you should generate a password with letters, numbers, and special characters (like $). Obviously, it's tough to remember such passwords, so some use password programs such as LastPass, KeePass and Roboform that generate passwords, store them, and even login to sites for you.