Posted by 
The most popular password in Australia — and indeed the world — is "123456", a code so easy for hackers to crack that they can do it in under one second.
New research from global password manager NordPass has revealed the top most-used passwords in every country, and the stunningly small time it takes to crack each one.
While "123456" was the most popular in Australia, other frequently used passwords used down under included "password", "lizottes", "abc123" and "password1".
READ MORE: Car seized in Sydney in search for William Tyrrell
Australians' choice of passwords reflected that of global trends, which also included "qwerty", "iloveoyu", "monkey" and "dragon".
The ninth-most used password by Aussies men was "holden" while the eighth-most used password by Aussie women was "chocolate".
The research found women tend to use music-related passwords such as "onedirection" or "justinbieber" while men tended to use passwords closely aligned to the football teams in their relevant area, such as "steelers" in the USA or "Liverpool" in the UK.
READ MORE: Red meat prices to soar over next 18 months
NordPass CEO Jonas Karklys said as more people spend time online, the unfortunate side effect is that passwords are getting weaker.
"Unfortunately, passwords keep getting weaker, and people still don't maintain proper password hygiene," said Mr Karklys.
"It's important to understand that passwords are the gateway to our digital lives, and with us spending more and more time online, it's becoming enormously important to take better care of our cybersecurity."
READ MORE: Thousands apply for compensation for COVID-19 vaccine reactions
Australia was deemed to have a "high" risk for the number of passwords per capita leaked to hackers, putting it in the same category as the United States, Russia, Italy, France and Ireland.
NordPass also found a "stunning" number of people used their own name as a password, and were surprised to find that swear words also made a common appearance, most likely to be used by men.
The research was evaluated from a four-terabyte database of passwords that included 50 countries and other statistical categories such as gender.
NordPass' CEO recommended for users to immediately change their password if they saw it on the list, and to use multi-factor authentication — such as an SMS code — wherever possible.
Source: 9News
