Password Patterns, Predictability, And Psychology: What ‘123456’ Says About You

Over the years, we’ve learned a lot about passwords (and we’ve been urged to make them stronger and more difficult to guess). For the most part, though, people keep their passwords short and sweet – and fairly easy to crack. Why? What is the psychology behind how people choose specific passwords? We wanted to know. We analyzed two data sets containing the password choices of 10 million people – CEOs, scientists, students, and all types in between – to figure out why there are certain things we consider easy to remember and difficult to guess. Using this data, we discovered who uses what types of password, the gender and generational differences that influence password selection, the most commonly used password keyboard patterns, and much more.

Check out our study “Unmasked: What 10 Million Passwords Reveal About The People Who Use Them” to read more and to find out if your password follows any of these predictable patterns.