The Cybernews research team have conducted a comprehensive study of over 19B passwords from over 200 cybersecurity incidents and uncovered several 2025 password creation trends. Not only out of 19B passwords only around 1.1B were unique, but according to the researchers, offesive words are popular choice — many people choose to use fuck, ass, hell and many other in their passwords.
Profane or offensive words are a widespread practice
Cybernews researchers discovered that profanity in passwords is a common trend — the top entry was “ass”, and it was used in almost 1% of all passwords, or over 165M times. However, this can be partly explained by using “pass” or “password.”
Surprisingly, people more often chose to use hell (19.9M) as their password than Jesus (16.6M) and the word tit (23.4M) was chosen almost the same amount of times as god (23.9M). According to researchers, the chance of a successful attack rate against users with passwords from the swearwords wordlist (p.19) in brute-forcing or hash-cracking scenarios is 1.65%.
Cybernews research team found that the ten most popular swearwords used in passwords were these:
- ass (165M)
- god (23.9M)
- tit (23.4M)
- hell (19.9M)
- jesus (16.6M)
- fuck (16.5M)
- sex (9.5M)
- shit (6.5M)
- butt (5.6M)
- arse (5M)
Similar research was done by the Cybernews research team back in 2022. The most popular swearwords haven’t changed much: “ass”, “fuck”, “god”, “tit”, and “shit” were used the most in 2022. However, researchers found that people often used such words as “git” and “xxx”, and in 2025, these words weren’t even in the TOP 30.
The US topped the list of countries that swear the most
According to a study that analyzed which countries swear the most online, the United States came out first, followed by the United Kingdom and Australia. Another study found, that the typical American uses up to 90 swearwords a day and the country even shows the highest rates for using “fuck”.
Using positive words makes it even more likely to be successfully hacked
Many people also choose to use words that they associate with positivity. Researchers found that the most popular positive words were love (87M), win (34M), and star (30M). The chance of a successful attack against users who choose words from the positive words list (p. 12) is 2.12%.
Some people might recognise patterns discussed here in their personal experience. If so, several easily accessible tools can help people review their data. One of them is Cybernews Password leak checker, where you can enter your password and check if it has leaked.
Methodology
Cybernews research team analyzed data from leaks and breaches in 12 months starting in April 2024. The original leaks contained over 3TB of data and were loaded with information that could be used to steal accounts or impersonate affected people in identity theft attacks. The data included leaked databases, combolists, and stealer logs originating from around 200 cybersecurity incidents. Only data that became publicly available was analyzed. The analysed dataset contained 213 GB of leaked passwords.
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This entry was posted on June 18, 2025 at 11:50 am and is filed under Commentary with tags Cybernews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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The Most Common Offensive Words Used In Passwords Revealed
The Cybernews research team have conducted a comprehensive study of over 19B passwords from over 200 cybersecurity incidents and uncovered several 2025 password creation trends. Not only out of 19B passwords only around 1.1B were unique, but according to the researchers, offesive words are popular choice — many people choose to use fuck, ass, hell and many other in their passwords.
Profane or offensive words are a widespread practice
Cybernews researchers discovered that profanity in passwords is a common trend — the top entry was “ass”, and it was used in almost 1% of all passwords, or over 165M times. However, this can be partly explained by using “pass” or “password.”
Surprisingly, people more often chose to use hell (19.9M) as their password than Jesus (16.6M) and the word tit (23.4M) was chosen almost the same amount of times as god (23.9M). According to researchers, the chance of a successful attack rate against users with passwords from the swearwords wordlist (p.19) in brute-forcing or hash-cracking scenarios is 1.65%.
Cybernews research team found that the ten most popular swearwords used in passwords were these:
Similar research was done by the Cybernews research team back in 2022. The most popular swearwords haven’t changed much: “ass”, “fuck”, “god”, “tit”, and “shit” were used the most in 2022. However, researchers found that people often used such words as “git” and “xxx”, and in 2025, these words weren’t even in the TOP 30.
The US topped the list of countries that swear the most
According to a study that analyzed which countries swear the most online, the United States came out first, followed by the United Kingdom and Australia. Another study found, that the typical American uses up to 90 swearwords a day and the country even shows the highest rates for using “fuck”.
Using positive words makes it even more likely to be successfully hacked
Many people also choose to use words that they associate with positivity. Researchers found that the most popular positive words were love (87M), win (34M), and star (30M). The chance of a successful attack against users who choose words from the positive words list (p. 12) is 2.12%.
Some people might recognise patterns discussed here in their personal experience. If so, several easily accessible tools can help people review their data. One of them is Cybernews Password leak checker, where you can enter your password and check if it has leaked.
Methodology
Cybernews research team analyzed data from leaks and breaches in 12 months starting in April 2024. The original leaks contained over 3TB of data and were loaded with information that could be used to steal accounts or impersonate affected people in identity theft attacks. The data included leaked databases, combolists, and stealer logs originating from around 200 cybersecurity incidents. Only data that became publicly available was analyzed. The analysed dataset contained 213 GB of leaked passwords.
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This entry was posted on June 18, 2025 at 11:50 am and is filed under Commentary with tags Cybernews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.