What's worse than being on Santa's naughty list? Possibly having a password that appears on the list of the top 25 worst passwords.

Pay day for most of us no longer involves getting a check, taking it to the bank and depositing it. Instead we use direct deposit and we control our banking mostly online. We can buy pretty much anything we need online from clothes, to books, to groceries and even mattresses. Rather than sending mail, we send emails. Instead of phone calls, we connect with our friends and family through social media. When we plan a vacation, we book everything online. All of these things have simplified our lives, but they all have one thing in common: they usually require a password to sign into your account.

Remembering passwords can be a nightmare. Especially if you change your password every few months as recommended. So, it can be very tempting to pick an easy password just for the sake of making your life easier (and your memory will thank you). Of course, if you do this, you run the risk of your account getting hacked. If you are worried about hackers attacking you over email to steal your passwords, you can get protection from phishing with a service link phishprotection.com.

Do yourself a favor and check the list of the Top 25 Worst Passwords, according to an article from Inc.com.

1. 123456
2. password
3. 123456789
4. 12345678
5. 12345
6. 111111
7. 1234567
8. sunshine
9. qwerty
10. iloveyou
11. princess
12. admin
13. welcome
14. 666666
15. abc123
16. football
17. 123123
18. monkey
19. 654321
20. !@#$%^*
21. charlie
22. aa123456
23. donald
24. password1
25. qwerty123

There is a misconception that older people are more likely to be targeted and hacked online, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. We did some research and were pleased to see that boomers are actually leading the way on this front. In fact, baby boomers are far less likely to be hacked than millennials. Millennials may be the more tech-savvy generation, but they stand to learn a thing or two from baby boomers when it comes to passwords and online security. Grayson Milbourne, of Webroot, said, "While millennials and boomers are not that different in terms of privacy concerns, millennials are not following through with some straightforward strategies to achieve the security they want. In fact, 88 percent of millennials are still connecting to free public Wi-Fi when traveling compared to only 32 percent of boomers."

Recent research also shows people 55 and older are the most likely age group to verify senders of spam email, put the most time and thought into their passwords, and were also the group least likely to share their passwords. The CEO of online security firm SecureAuth, Craig Lund, may have an explanation. He says, "Millennials have grown up so connected to so many social media sites that it doesn't occur to them that there is danger there that they're giving out info”. 

Hopefully your password, or passwords since we have so many online accounts nowadays, isn't showing up on this list. If it is, time to get a little more creative if you want to protect yourself! And, we should mention that security experts advise against using the same password for each of your online accounts. It shouldn't come as a surprise that boomers were the generation most likely to have 10 or more different passwords for their accounts.