Are You Using the Most-Hacked Passwords in Minnesota?

Data breaches and hackers always seem to be making news, and a survey now revealed some of the most hacked passwords here in Minnesota.

It was earlier this year that Minnesota's own United Health Group was hit with a massive data breach after hackers breached the security system of a UHG subsidiary. Then, AT&T recently reported that hackers stole its data, and likely the records of phone calls and texts from just about all of its users.

So making sure you're protected online is important, even if there are few things more annoying than constantly having to change your passwords, right? We all have a TON of them to remember these days because it seems you need a username and password for EVERYTHING!

Fact: You'll soon need a password to go to the bathroom. (Okay, I made that up-- but I wouldn't be surprised if that's not too far off.) So I can understand why we want to use easy-to-remember words and numbers as passwords.

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But the problem is, if your password is easy for you to remember, it's also probably easy for cyber creeps to hack. And, brand new data released by online security platform, mymxdata.com, reveals the most common words, phrases, and values used in passwords.

From names to numbers, phrases, and number combinations and values, here are the passwords you should avoid using, according to mymxdata.com.

MOST-USED NAMES IN HACKED PASSWORDS

+ Michael
+ Daniel
+ Ashley
+ Jessica
+ Charlie
+ Jordan
+ Michelle
+ Thomas
+ Andrew
+ Anthony
+ Jennifer
+ Joshua
+ Andrea
+ Maggie
+ George
+ Hannah
+ William
+ Samantha
+ William
+ Robert
+ Martin
+ Harley
+ Brandon

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Of course, most passwords also ask you to use a numerical sequence, as well, right? However, 6,621,933 passwords contain the not-so-complicated number combination of ‘123456’. Check out more commonly used phrases that are also easiest to hack, courtesy of mymixdata.com:

MOST-USED NUMERICAL VALUES/PHRASES IN HACKED PASSWORDS

+ 123456789
+ 111111
+ password
+ qwerty
+ acb123
+ 12345678
+ password1
+ 1234567
+ 123123

According to this BringMeTheNews story, several familiar uniquely Minnesotan words also popped up on the most-hacked list. Fortunately, though, names like 'Twin Cities,' 'Minneapolis,' and 'Rochester' didn't make the cut. But fellow words like 'Minnesota,' 'Minnesota1,' 'Vikings,' 'Prince1999,' 'St.Paul,' and even 'Duluth' DID make the most-hacked list.

So if your log-ins include any of those common Minnesota words or phrases without any extra numbers, signs, or other unique personalizations, you may want to...gulp... change those passwords. Because being 'Minnesota nice' won't work against those cyber criminals out to hack into your accounts, right?

Meanwhile, if you want to keep your Land of 10,000 Lakes pride going on your phone, keep scrolling for 31 beautiful, free phone wallpapers that are perfect for Minnesota lovers everywhere!

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