If you have an Apple or an Android phone—and you probably do—you have the option of locking your phone using a PIN code. With most of these phones, you can choose a four-digit PIN or a six-digit PIN.

A few weeks ago, Tarah Wheeler, the senior director of Data trust, Threat, and Vulnerability Management at Splunk, shared a list of the most common PIN codes people use to protect their smartphones ...

Update, May 26, 2025: This story, originally published May 24, has been updated with a brief history of PIN codes, information regarding the most secure codes you can use and why 8068 really isn’t the ...

What's safer? Using a numeric PIN code to unlock your Android smartphone or relying on a finger squiggle? Newly-released research suggests that, at least when someone close by could be looking over ...