Analysis reveals which NFL, English Premier League teams are most used passwords

Image: PeopleImages/istockphoto.com via AFP Relaxnews

When signing up to a new service, users need a password and it’s often a sporting fan’s favorite team or beloved mascot that gets selected for the win.

With football season about to kick off, password manager app Dashlane, along with Virginia Tech researchers led by Gang Wang, put together an analysis to see which teams were the top-ranking password choices.

Teams from the NFL and English Premier League were the focus for the Analytics Team who used Wang’s anonymized database of 61.5 million passwords, from 107 datasets, to establish the top-related passwords in football, as well as gain a “deeper understanding of how weak passwords are generated,” notes the Dashlane blog.

This year’s Super Bowl winners, the Philadelphia Eagles, were also the winners of the most used password, while second and third place went to Dallas Cowboys and Oakland Raiders. New England Patriots and San Francisco 49ers ranked in 11th and 25th places respectively, while the Houston Texans came in last at 32nd.

As for the English favorites, Liverpool Football Club was in first place and London’s Chelsea and Arsenal followed. Last year’s Premier League winner was Manchester City, however they ranked in 17th place with local rivals Manchester United being in 4th place.

It’s not surprising that team names are chosen, however, Emmanuel Schalit, CEO of Dashlane, explains that “it’s a major security risk” and advises against choosing anything that uses names, schools and other personally identifiable information.

The company advises that a unique password be chosen for every new online account, with the minimum of eight mixed characters — different cases, numbers and special symbols — to help avoid being hacked. JB

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