Passwords

What is a password?

A password is used to protect your user accounts on the Internet, which you access via computer, smartphone or tablet.
Passwords are sequences of numbers, letters and special characters. These are used to control access to an online account (for example, at a bank or company) and to prove one’s identity.

What should you think about when creating a password?

Hackers have tools that automatically try out all possible character combinations, test entire dictionaries, including appended numbers, or try out access data once published on the Internet on all kinds of services.

There are a few basic rules to create a password that is as strong and secure as possible:

Passwords should be at least 12 characters long. The longer the password, the harder it is to guess.
A mixture of lowercase and uppercase letters, numbers and special characters (e.g. &, ?, !,% …) is ideal.
You should create a separate password for each important account. In this case, if one password is cracked, the attackers will not have access to all of your accounts.

It is better to avoid the following:

Never create a password from a single word that can be found in the dictionary.
Simple sequences of numbers (12345) or words with a number at the beginning or end are not safe.
Birthdays, names of family members or pets, place of residence, favourite singer, etc. are also not suitable.
It should also not consist of common variants and/or keyboard patterns, such as “asdfgh” or “1234abcd”.

How to store your passwords?

Never share your password with anyone else. Especially if someone asks for it in an email or SMS (see Phishing).
It is not advisable to write down your passwords on paper and keep them near the computer. However, if you can’t remember passwords well and keep them offline in a safe place, this is a possible alternative.
You can use a password manager to manage your different passwords as well. You then only have to remember one main password and can still use strong and different passwords everywhere.

What to do if you have forgotten your password?

Each account allows users to reset the password if it has been forgotten. To make this possible, the identity of the user is verified. For example, immediately after requesting a new password, you will receive an email asking you to click on a specific link in order to be able to reset the password securely.