A secure password is the best protection against hackers. But what should be considered for password security? How to recognize a good or bad password? If you are interested in these questions, here are the most important basic rules for good passwords.
Simple passwords are dangerous
Unfortunately, many people carelessly assign simple passwords to their computer access (e.g. B. for a user account on your own PC) or for a personal log-in on a website.
Often the sense of a secure password comes to the users’ attention only when the personal access has been hacked and a concrete damage has already been caused. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter if an insecure password was given due to carelessness or ignorance. Once access has been hacked, the hassle is great.
To avoid such trouble, read this tip about some basic guidelines for secure password assignment. Because even with simple measures you can protect a personal access from hackers. The question is always "how to know"!
Golden rules for a secure password!
The longer a password, the more secure it is!
The rule of thumb here is that a reasonably secure password should be at least 8 characters should contain. The more characters a password contains, the more variants a hacker would have to try to crack the password.
Never use simple names or terms!
Hackers often try to get a list of common first and last names (z. B. Heinz, Meier etc.) or designations (e.g. B. Parrot, Mercedes, German Shepherd etc.) to use a script coupled with a library to crack passwords. If you use such words, there is a good chance that your access can be hacked.
Never repeat names or terms!
If you want to make it especially easy for a hacker to gain access to an account, all you have to do is duplicate names or terms or. repeat. An example is the choice of the login name "Heinz" with the password "Heinz". Some hackers try these doubles first to hack an account. This advice applies to all data (z. B. date of birth, place of residence, hobbies etc.), which will be visible to a hacker on your account – or user profile.
Do not use known dates at work!
When I was still working at BMW, I tried, as a joke, to log in using the names of my colleagues (as log-ins) and known data (such as z. B. their birthday, name of wife / husband / children etc.) to log into their account. With this simple trick I was able to hack almost 30% of all accesses within shortest time.
Of course, I didn’t take advantage of this, but I realized how careless my colleagues were with their accesses. Therefore my advice: don’t make the same mistake as my colleagues did. You never know if you make an enemy of someone who can easily gain access to your account and cause a lot of trouble.
Additionally use special characters and numbers!
Passwords with special characters and numbers are especially difficult to hack, because they cannot be recorded in any library, because they do not occur in real life. Special characters can be found above the numbers on your keyboard – examples are> ! " § $ %& / etc. These can be easily combined with arbitrary letter sequences – z. B. dplehK!%dt61BG.
Never leave notepads with passwords lying around openly!
This basic rule applies mainly at the workplace or in places where in principle many people can find your notepad. If you write down passwords, do it in a place that is not accessible to others. One possibility is to create a hidden directory or a password-protected document on the computer.
But do not name this directory with titles like password or passwords etc., because such a directory can be found easily with the Windows search.
If you want to collect your collected passwords in an Open Office document, for example, you can additionally hide it from prying eyes with a password. How to do this, you can read in the article "Word / OpenOffice: Protect documents with a password".
Never use numbers or letter combinations in keyboard order!
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What is meant by this? Sequences of numbers that you find in the same arrangement on the keyboard are z. B. 123456 or 567890 etc. – Letter arrangements are qwertz or asdfgh. All these letter and number sequences are right next to each other on the keyboard. Strangely enough, they are quite popular among many as passwords and are used more often. This is also known by hackers, for whom this habit has long been established. So follow my advice and leave such combinations alone!
An individual password for each access
In order to keep the damage low – in case a password is hacked – one should always choose an individual password for each account. Choosing one password for all accounts brings the danger that hackers can get access everywhere with only one password. A hacked email account may be annoying – but a complete hack that can easily turn into identity theft is a disaster.
If you follow these simple basic rules, you should be able to create a very secure password. Even if you have not had any problems with insecure passwords so far, you should think far ahead and give priority to security. Just keep in mind that a strong password will only cost you a few seconds – fixing the damage could take weeks, if it can be repaired at all.
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