January is a funny month in cyber security.

Every year, we see a spike in new passwords being created… and a surprising number of them follow the same familiar patterns.

Think seasons… months… events… things that feel easy to remember.

A huge new analysis of 800 million leaked passwords found that hundreds of thousands of them were built around predictable themes. Including seasonal words and simple variations with numbers or symbols.

On the surface, some of these passwords look clever.

But modern password-cracking tools don’t see them as clever at all.

They see them as predictable.

And predictability is gold for attackers.

When a password is leaked in one breach, even something unrelated like a shopping site or old forum, attackers immediately test it against work accounts.

If the password is based on a common theme, their tools spot it in seconds.

And it’s not because people are careless.

It’s because remembering dozens of unique, complex passwords is impossible for any human being.

So, our brains reach for something simple, seasonal, or emotional. Totally understandable… just not very secure.

The easiest fix?

A password manager.

It creates strong random passwords and remembers them for you. No more patterns. No more guessing. No more using the same root word everywhere.

If you have been meaning to review your security this year, this is a great place to start. Get in touch.