For a password to be really secure, some conditions must be met. The password should have 10 to 15 characters, including upper case and lower case letters, special characters and numbers. — dpa
Secure passwords are the front line in protection against Internet identity theft.
It's crucial that every single online account for banking, shopping or entertainment has its own password, says Professor Christoph Meinel, director of the Hasso Plattner Institute (HPI) at the University of Potsdam in Germany.
That way, if one password is cracked or captured by hackers, all of the accounts won't be in danger.
For a password to be really secure, some conditions must be met. The password should have 10 to 15 characters, including upper case and lower case letters, special characters and numbers.
Easily identifiable information such as names, birth dates, pet or partner names or the name of the service being used should never be included in a password. Words found in a dictionary also shouldn't be used as these can be quickly guessed by a machine.
Changing passwords frequently is recommended, Meinel says. However, jumping back and forth between passwords you've already used is not advisable. Instead a brand new password should be created every time.
But all of this is of no use if criminals break into databases and steal user data on a large scale – then even secure passwords can be endangered.
What does help in such cases is two-factor authentication, a method used by more and more online services. In addition to the password, another code has to be entered, often sent to the user's phone by text or generated by a special device in the user's possession.
There's something else that helps: Stay alert. You can use websites such as the HPI's one or haveibeenpwned.com to see whether your personal information such as email addresses and passwords have been captured and offered for sale by criminals.
All you have to do to run the search is enter your email address – however, only known data leaks can be checked. If the result shows that your data has been compromised you should immediately change the relevant passwords. — dpa
