Assessing Common PINs – “ABC News analyzed 29 million leaked four-digit PINs from Have I Been Pwned? (a database of exposed credentials from data breaches) and visualized the data using a grid where each square represents a unique PIN. The brightness of each square indicates the popularity of the code—brighter squares show more commonly used PINs. The visualization reveals three patterns: a bright diagonal line from the bottom-left to the top-right where repeated digits (e.g., “0000,” “1111”) cluster, bright spots around years like “1986” and “2004” suggesting people use birth years, and bright vertical and horizontal lines where PINs follow common keypad strokes, such as “2580” which form a straight line on a phone keypad. This visualization emphasizes how predictable such PINs are, posing significant risks to digital security.”