PC Pro has an article about a recent attack against websites (among them a site for writers) where usernames and passwords were stolen. If you feel inspired to change your password to something harder, a good tip is to use a short sentence with unusual words (like "sphinxes are intrepid"), if the site allows it. It's generally safer than using a short string of random characters.
Just adding an article I've read before on horrible passwords. As you see there's some of the same passwords as mentioned above and there's also some very similar ones: Top 500 worst passwords I'm not sure I like what LulzSec is doing but at least they're giving people a wake up call on password protection.
The way I figure it. If someone were to get my pw, they would probably get access to everything. I am just to damn lazy to make unique passwords for everything. Luckily the pw itself is rather obscure in the first place. But people are still using those kinds of passwords? I mean. Damn we live in 2011. But then I guess I am the last to lecture someone on this.
I'm the same way, I've got the same couple of passwords that I use for everything. Except on my school website, because if you use anything that resembles and actual word, it says "based on a dictionary word" and rejects it.