Why Passwords Break

Year after year, leaked-password lists still put "123456" and "password" at or near the top. Even people who try harder tend to use predictable patterns: a word, a capital first letter, a number, and a symbol at the end ("Password1!").

The core problem is that humans are bad at randomness. We reuse passwords, we base them on personal information, and we follow predictable substitution patterns (@ for a, 3 for e).