Massachusetts Folks Who Have any of These 15 Passwords Should Change Them Now

In this day and age, it's easier than ever for hackers to break into online accounts and clean out funds, steal identities, and cause all kinds of havoc. It doesn't matter where you are in Massachusetts, whether it's Boston, Worcester, Springfield, or anywhere in the country, we're all vulnerable to the threat of identity theft and other online crimes. The important thing is to protect yourself in advance.

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The company I work for is very diligent in making sure we change our passwords regularly, particularly our email passwords. In addition, throughout the years I've been here, employees have been required to watch videos on phishing scams and the like and take tests following those videos. Some people may think that's a lot, but I think it's not only necessary but imperative in today's world of constant scams and hacking activity. After all, the more educated you are on these topics, the easier it will be to detect scams and bogus emails. Education and prevention are key.

I mentioned how the company I work for has us change our passwords regularly, but you may be wondering what qualifies as a safe password and which passwords put you and your company's information in a vulnerable state.

According to Enzoic, these are the 15 worst passwords to use:

1. admin (or admin with only a few extra characters like admin1, admin!, adminX)
2. password2024 (and iterations of it, such as 2023Password)
3. password (and iterations of it, such as password1, password123, p4ssword)
4. p4ssw0rd (or other common leetspeak variations)
5. 12345 (and iterations of it, such as 123456, 1234567, 12345678, 123456789)
6. 654321 (reversed versions of common passwords)
7. Iloveyou
8. qwerty (and iterations of it, such as qwerty1, qwerty!, qwerty123, etc.)
9. 1111111 (and others like it with sequential characters, such as 222222, 3333333, 4444444, 5555555, etc.)
10. 123123 (and iterations of it, such as 12341234, 1234512345, 321321, etc.)
11. abc123 (and iterations of it, such as abcd123, abcd1234, 321cba, etc.)
12. asdfgh (and iterations of it, such as asdfghj, asdfgh!, etc.)
13. Website name (passwords that contains the site name. ie: www.acmecompany.com and the password is acmecompany)
14. Any common word in the dictionary less than 8 characters
15. Lastly, compromised passwords that have been exposed along with your username!

Enzoic reports that it's not just the words in a password. It is how they are used, what context they are used in, if they have been exposed online, and other factors. The website has a handy tool where you can check a password to see if it is strong or weak or if the password has been compromised. You can get more information about weak and strong passwords and try out the password inspection tool by going here.