Four years ago, an app that would lock the phone and take a picture of the offender when an incorrect passcode was used called Big Brother Camera Security was released on the App Store. Daniel Amitay was the developer, and in the app’s early days he logged 200,000 passcodes anonymously, and found some interesting data regarding the passcodes people used.
The most interesting find from all this was that a substantial amount of the passcodes used were of the 1990s, suggesting younger users setting it to their birth year, or parents using their child’s birth year. Trying all of the years in the 1990s has a good probability of getting you into a locked iOS device. (editor’s note: Don’t break into someone’s device!)
Also frequently used were patterns. Anything that makes a shape on the keypad, or a common word, should be avoided (5683, the 6th most commonly used passcode, spells LOVE).
Below are the top ten used (usage out of 200,000 in parentheses):
- 1234 (8,884)
- 0000 (5,246)
- 2580 (4,753)
- 1111 (3,262)
- 5555 (1,774)
- 5683 (1,425)
- 0852 (1,221)
- 2222 (1,139)
- 1212 (944)
- 1998 (882)
It’s also advisable to write down the passcode somewhere. We see iOS devices on a daily basis with a lost passcode and the only resolution is erasing the device and starting over. This means if one forgets one’s passcode, all the data is lost.