10 Passwords NOT to use

With all the talk of high-level hacking, it's easy to forget that it is we who make ourselves most vulnerable on a very individual level. PC Magazine recently compiled a list of the 10 most common passwords in the United States today. Do not use these on confidential e-mail accounts!

1. password

2. 123456

3. qwerty

4. abc123

5. letmein

6. monkey

7. myspace 1

8. password 1

9. blink182

10. (your first name)

These are the first passwords that a criminal would try when attempting to hack your account. Other types of passwords you want to avoid are birthdays and the names of your children or spouse.

The key is to create a password that is unrelated to anything someone might be able to find out about you if they were digging into your background. Tricky alphanumeric passwords -- ones that include both letters and numbers -- can work well.

by Clark Howard