The perfect password reminder

How do you find really secure passwords and what exactly is a password reminder? Today's article should help you to find strong passwords and protect your data.

Only a secure password is a good password

Good passwords consist of many upper and lower case letters, numbers and special characters. But how can you memorize such passwords without writing them down? There are several ways to do this, and here we are at the so-called password memorization. You can use a complete sentence as a password or you can derive the password from the memorized sentence. Here is a small example, which you should not use: "I always go for a walk with my dog in the evening around 9 pm".

Variable use

If an app does not accept long passwords, you can, as in the example below, use the first letter of each word in the sentence to create a password. With our example sentence: "I always go for a walk with my dog in the evening around 9 pm", the result is the following password: Iagfawwmditea9p. It is important that the system remains simple and reproducible. Two-Factor Authentication: Please note: If an application supports two-factor authentication, you should enable it as an additional protection.

Avoid password pitfalls

In general, you should avoid easily guessed terms or numbers, such as simple words, names or dates of birth. You should also avoid replacing letters with numbers or special characters - for example, replace B with 3 (in technical jargon: leeten or Leetspeak). It is also necessary to use an individual password for each service used.

Have you found the perfect password? You will find a password check on this page of the Data Protection Officer Zurich.