Estimating the size of Serie A fanbases using Pwned Passwords

---

If you have ever wondered which Serie A fanbases are hit the hardest by security breaches, you've come to the right place. If this idea never crossed your mind, that's also very understandable!

Today, I had a bit of fun poking around the Pwned Passwords data dump. I wanted to determine which Serie A team had the biggest fanbase, using the frequency of leaked passwords that can be reasonably associated with a specific team.

For example, forzatoro (3,798) (that's Italian for "go Toro!") is clearly a password we can associate with Torino fans, and it's appeared in a data breach 3,798 times. Throughout this post, I will include several examples of passwords and next to them in parentheses the number of occurrences in Pwnd Passwords.

It's not surprising that passwords attract this sort of content. Despite the best efforts of security experts, people still reach for something they can easily recall and football clubs are extremely memorable for people.

Moreover, they work very well against annoying password requirements. Here's how I imagine it works for someone that's hell bent on using their favorite football club as a password:

Sign up

Hey, you need to use some capital letters!

Hey, you need to use some numbers!

Yay, you did it!

Do you need numbers in your passwords? Football clubs have memorable years of foundation or famous dates when they won trophies. If we look at Inter fans whose passwords were pwned, for example, we find inter (23,297), forzainter (21,941), and inter1908 (14,417) in the top three most used passwords. So in my search, I looked for different combinations of club names and foundation year.

I also looked for common combinations of capitalized words, without going too deep in SpOnGEbOb meme territory, this yielded some results, but in general the lowercase versions of each password appeared much more frequently: for instance, forzajuve (15,975), forzaJuve (16), ForzaJuve (65).

I couldn't overlook the obvious so I also searched for the name of the clubs. However, some teams carry the name of their city and some cities are big or famous enough that non-football fans may use their name as a password. For example, napoli (94,331), roma (15,054), or verona (23,381). So I excluded those queries.

Lastly, I manually added some passwords that I knew would return a significant number of hits, for instance, 26maggio (660) for Lazio fans to celebrate their Coppa Italia win against their rivals Roma in 2013 or 5maggio (582) for Juventus fans to celebrate their scudetto against Inter in 2002.

I also included the names of some great players that I thought people would commemorate in their passwords. Here we find delpiero (41,087), maldini (13,979), totti10 (13,425). I notably excluded maradona (74,376) as I don't believe Napoli fans can claim him exclusively for themselves.

A final note about methodology: the Pwnd Passwords dump is about 40GB uncompressed, so to speed up the search I dropped all passwords with fewer than 16 occurrences, which results in a much more manageable 1.5GB text file. Why 16? Because forzasassuolo (17) was the least common password I could find in my manual explorations. You can find the code I ran on GitHub at TommasoAmici/serie-a-passwords.

With all that said, here are the final standings. You can find an extended table with results for each specific password at the bottom of this page.

Team	Count
Juventus	306,731
Milan	140,521
Roma	83,457
Inter	67,153
Lazio	33,965
Fiorentina	32,972
Napoli	28,375
Verona	15,232
Sampdoria	14,954
Atalanta	14,209
Genoa	11,509
Torino	7,210
Salernitana	3,839
Udinese	2,835
Spezia	1,311
Empoli	1,127
Sassuolo	751
Bologna	690
Cagliari	662
Venezia	90

Extended results

Team	Password	Count
Juventus		306,731
	juventus	213,620
	delpiero	41,087
	forzajuve	15,975
	delpiero10	14,009
	Juventus	8,336
	juve	4,349
	juve1897	3,392
	juventus1897	3,118
	forzajuventus	1,572
	5maggio	582
	finoallafine	340
	forzajuve1897	152
	ForzaJuve1897	83
	ForzaJuve	65
	ForzaJuventus	18
	forzajuventus1897	17
	forzaJuve	16
Milan		140,521
	acmilan	46,991
	milan	30,808
	forzamilan	26,944
	maldini	13,979
	milan1899	9,939
	milanac	5,034
	maldini3	4,902
	Milan	1,332
	forzamilan1899	347
	ForzaMilan	199
	forzaMilan	26
	ForzaMilan1899	20
Roma		83,457
	asroma	25,803
	forzaroma	25,011
	magica	11,102
	totti10	13,425
	asroma1927	9,968
	totti	5,306
	roma1927	4,294
	laziomerda	2,568
	francescototti	2,098
	dajeroma	969
	forzaroma1927	807
	francescototti10	566
	ForzaRoma	120
	forzamagica	95
	magica1927	56
Inter		67,153
	inter	23,297
	forzainter	21,941
	inter1908	14,417
	fcinter	3,477
	interfc	1,735
	triplete	998
	Inter	506
	forzainter1908	366
	triplete2010	244
	ForzaInter	98
	maistatiinb	30
	ForzaInter1908	26
	forzaInter	18
Lazio		33,965
	sslazio	9,624
	forzalazio	8,846
	lazio1900	7,074
	lazio	4,905
	romamerda	2,246
	26maggio	660
	forzalazio1900	434
	Lazio	77
	lulic71	45
	ForzaLazio	27
	ForzaLazio1900	27
Fiorentina		32,972
	fiorentina	20,003
	viola	8,352
	forzaviola	2,764
	Fiorentina	745
	fiorentina1926	523
	viola1926	449
	forzafiorentina	103
	forzaviola1926	33
Napoli		28,375
	forzanapoli	14,879
	napoli1926	11,216
	sscnapoli	1,377
	forzanapoli1926	852
	ForzaNapoli	51
Verona		15,232
	hellas	12,911
	hellasverona	1,135
	hellas1903	762
	verona1903	204
	hellasverona1903	105
	forzahellas	94
	forzaverona	21
Sampdoria		14,954
	sampdoria	11,644
	doria	901
	samp	527
	samp1946	471
	sampdoria1946	399
	forzasamp	372
	Sampdoria	290
	forzadoria	264
	forzasampdoria	48
	doria1946	38
Atalanta		14,209
	atalanta	9,003
	dea	3,378
	atalanta1907	1,122
	Atalanta	375
	dea1907	258
	forzaatalanta	56
	forzadea	17
Genoa		11,509
	genoa1893	4,973
	grifone	2,755
	forzagenoa	1,635
	genoa	1,282
	doriamerda	524
	grifone1893	132
	forzagenoa1893	102
	Genoa	54
	forzagrifone	52
Torino		7,210
	forzatoro	3,798
	toro	2,525
	torino1906	486
	toro1906	259
	forzatorino	63
	ForzaToro	43
	forzatoro1906	36
Salernitana		3,839
	salernitana	3,143
	salernitana1919	557
	Salernitana	101
	forzasalernitana	38
Udinese		2,835
	udinese	2,558
	forzaudinese	115
	Udinese	93
	udinese1896	69
Spezia		1,311
	spezia	1,033
	forzaspezia	179
	spezia1906	99
Empoli		1,127
	empoli	916
	forzaempoli	124
	empoli1920	59
	Empoli	28
Sassuolo		751
	sassuolo	713
	forzasassuolo	17
	Sassuolo	21
Bologna		690
	forzabologna	423
	bologna1909	267
Cagliari		662
	forzacagliari	532
	cagliari1920	130
Venezia		90
	forzavenezia	46
	venezia1907	44