Why ‘ji32k7au4a83’ is one of the world’s most common passwords

Mar 07, 2019

Apparently “ji32k7au4a83” is one of the most common passwords on the internet.

Gizmodo reported Tuesday that the phrase appeared in 141 different data breaches, according to data cataloged by Have I Been Pwned.

Robert Ou, a hardware and software engineer, spotted the collection of letters and numbers. He tried to figure out why it was so common.

Fun thing I learned today regarding secure passwords: the password "ji32k7au4a83" looks like it'd be decently secure, right? But if you check e.g. HIBP, it's been seen over a hundred times. Challenge: explain why and how this happened and how this password might be guessed

— R (@ArcaneNibble) March 1, 2019

• According to The Verge, Taiwanese internet users discovered that the phrase is actually a common collection of characters in Mandarin.

• See, “ji32k7au4a83” actually spells out the phrase “我的密碼 on a Taiwanese keyboard. That phrases, “wǒ de mìmǎ,” actually means “my password” in Mandarin, The Verge reports.

• Interestingly, the phrase “au4a83” also appeared in 1,495 different data breaches. Those letters and numbers combine to read “password” using the same Taiwanese keyboard, according to The Verge.

Lessons: “The lesson here is that even if you’re using a custom keyboard that generates strings of letters and numbers that can mystify many English speakers, using something that equates to ‘password’ as your password is still a bad idea. Someone out there will know exactly what you’re trying to do,” according to The Verge.