What are the Top 10 Worst iPhone Passcodes?

14 June 2011 | 12:36 PM ET | Matt Liebowitz, SecurityNewsDaily Staff Writer

CREDIT: Apple

A word of advice: If "0000" is the four-digit passcode you currently use to unlock your Phone's screen, you should probably change it to something slightly more difficult to guess.

In addition to four zeros, insecure and easy-to-guess passcodes such as "1111" and "1234" rank high on a new list of the most common iPhone passcodes, according to iPhone app developer Daniel Amitay.

Also on the list, in descending order of popularity, are "2580," "5555," "5683," "0852, "2222," "1212" and "1998."

Most of these are easy to remember, though they're by no means secure. But why would people pick a seemingly random number such as "5683?"

That four-digit code, Amitay explains on his blog, "is the number representation of LOVE (5683)."

Amitay wrote that he anonymously collected the 204,508 passcodes for his study from passcodes used by purchasers of his "Big Brother Camera Security." (The app's unlock screen is nearly identical to the iPhone's unlock screen, he said.)

"Formulaic passwords are never a good idea," Amitay wrote, "yet 15 percent of all passcode sets were represented by only 10 different passcodes (out of a possible 10,000)."

Amitay said that if you use one of these rudimentary passwords, the odds of keeping your data secure if your phone gets into the wrong hands are not in your favor.

"A thief (or just a prankster) could try 10 different passcodes on your iPhone…With a 15 percent success rate, about 1 in 7 iPhones would easily unlock."

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