How do you choose a secure password?
Various measures are taken to protect your password, for example a waiting time of at least 2 seconds is required between attempts so that password-cracking programs cannot penetrate. Fortunately, rules for a secure password can be derived from the function of these programs and experience. But you also have to prevent easy guessing, spying out or often simple asking. It is therefore essential that you follow the instructions and rules below when setting your password.
How a password should not be
- No first, last and nicknames of your Partner in life or even your own, children, friends and pets.
- Not a date of birth or marriage, own address, license plate number, phone number etc.
- No place names and countries, calendar words like summer, december etc.
- Never Favorite Music, Movie or Game, Authors, Books and Cartoons.
- Celebrities, swear words, proverbs and phrases or conspicuous objects in the workplace are also too easy to match for a password.
- Digit sequences such as 1234, 11111 etc., which can also be easily tested automatically, are particularly insecure.
- Same as letter pattern e.g. B. abcdef, fffggg or keyboard sequences like qwertz etc.
- Also typical computer terms such as login or even the word password itself, user, admin etc. should be avoided.
How to make a password more secure
- It is often said that at least 8 characters are required. But it should be at least 10 characters.
- It should be easy to remember and not be expected even by people close to you.
- With upper and lower case an irregular mountain of writing should be generated.
- The term should be combined with both digits and special characters.
- Password must be kept really secret and should not be written down anywhere.
- It should on no account be stored visibly on the device, i.e. it is not plain text in files or programs.
- It should also not be saved on the computer, although many programs offer this option.
- It must therefore not be sent via eMail, since it is then stored in unencrypted, written form on the computer.
- It should be changed from time to time to protect data.
Tips and Tricks
A few techniques for creating secure passwords are explained, which of course can also be combined with one another.
- To use the acronym method, take any well-known sentence, beginning of a song, from a specific book, or make up your own. The password is formed from the first letters of the individual words in upper and lower case and with the punctuation marks. If you really forget the sentence, you can look it up if necessary. The last sentence from Der Schwarm by F. Schätzing reads: Nothing is as it was. - Yes, one thing: I still smoke. Where would we be without constants? The derived password would be: Niaiw.-Y,ot:Iss.Wwwbwc?, which would be extremely secure, right?
- The sentence method can be used to create extra-long passwords that are particularly difficult to crack. A sentence is chosen analogous to the acronym method. However, all individual words are put together and number words are replaced by digits and special words as and, through, not by + / -.So the simple sentence:
I've gone through hell and back once!
results in the secure password I've1/hell+back1! - The double word method combines two words at a time, be it the names of two neighbors, two streets at an intersection, or some other situation you are familiar with. You simply combine the first three letters of the words and instead of
and
again a + character. So the password Mr.Mil+MrsSmi comes from Mr. Miller and Mrs. Smith
. - With the Leetspeak-Method, which comes from the gamer scene, letters are replaced by digits that look similar and – depending on the definition – also special characters + +replaced++. Usually an e is converted to 3, an o to 0, an a to 4 and an i to 1. This creates a wider range of possible characters in the password, making it more secure. In this way, HerMül+FraKoh of the last example becomes H3rMu3l+Fr4K0h.