Stephen Bach
Stephen Bach is the owner and chief of surgery at The Digital Docs in Marblehead.
True story:
Researchers at 
NordPass, an internet security firm, recently combed through a database of 500 million passwords leaked in data breaches, and ranked them in order of the most popular.
Are you ready for this?
Here’s the Top 10 in order:
- 12345
- 123456
- 123456789
- test1
- password
- 12345678
- zinch
- g_czechout
- asdf
- qwerty
If you use a password like any of these, your personal information is at risk!
(To get the full list go here)
We understand why people use such passwords – convenience, simplicity… or perhaps they don’t think hackers will come after them.
Nothing could be further from the truth. We deal with hacking attempts directed at regular folks on a weekly basis. 
If criminals get hold of your personal data, it can wreak havoc with your life.
Better password hygiene is the number one thing you can do to protect yourself.
After all, you probably lock your door when you leave your house or when you park your car… even if there’s nothing valuable inside!
A strong password will have at least one special character (such as @#$&), be at least eight characters long, and won’t have any common words/numbers like the above, or your birth date and name.
It’s also good practice to use a mix of caps and small letters.
Lastly — and this is a biggie — do NOT use the same password for everything… and DO keep track of your passwords!
We can’t tell you how often lost or misplaced passwords hold up repairs (sometimes hilariously, as in the case of the couple whose security question was their wedding date, and neither could remember! 
)
Try password-manager software (several available) or do it the old-fashioned way: Write it down! One customer told us of how she stores passwords in a recipe box, which we LOVE. Or if you don’t already have one, you can buy a little notebook JUST for your passwords. (We had so many customers with passwords problems that we created FREE password books!)
Heed this simple caution and you’ll save yourself a lot of headaches in the long run. 
Until next time…