(Mirror Daily, United States) – These days everything requires a password, from the thermostat, to our phone, e-mail, Facebook and even books (the electronic ones, of course), but it’s hard to remember so many passwords for so many devices and accounts, so people usually use one or two trustworthy combinations. According to the most recent survey, 1234 is still the most popular password used in 2015.

Recently SplashData released a list that comprised the 25 worst passwords that were used in 2015. They were called the worst passwords because Tony Stark’s shoe polisher could have guessed them. The worst part is that more than half of the secret codes were on the list in 2014 and 2013, and “1234” is on the list since the first e-mail account was ever created.

Apart from the classic “1234”, “12345”, “123456”, “123456789” and “1234567890” there are some new additions to the list of passwords that lack the imagination factor. For example, number two on the “Top worst of 2015” is “password”. While it is a funny pun and a very easily remembered one, it is used by millions of users worldwide. This means that the account protected by “password” could be hacked in a couple of seconds”.

But 2015 is not only the year in which 1234 is still the most popular password, it is also the year in which, after decades of absence and 3 widely discussed prequels, Star Wars came back to the big screens and generated so much excitement among the fans that thousands of them entrusted the privacy of their accounts to “solo” and “starwars”.

For those users that lack the imagination needed to create a password of their own, there are certain apps that generate the virtual keys for the user. The bad side? They can be hacked easily.

Big on-line companies such as Google and Yahoo are trying to add a bit of extra protection to the accounts of their users and they report any strange activity recorded on them. For example an attempt at connecting to an account from an IP that does not consist with the town or country in which the user resides. This is the first measure of protection that they too.

For the moment, the two companies are experimenting with new ways of account protection that will no longer require a password, but something harder to mimic or hack.

Apple already took a step forward in this direction and implemented a fingerprint scanner on their phones, so that only the rightful user may access it.

There will be a time when we will access all our accounts via fingerprints or facial recognition technology, but for now, 1234 is still the most popular password.

Image source: www.calliduspro.com