Secure passwords are crucial if you want to protect yourself from cyber criminals. Unfortunately, too many Internet users still rely on a simple sequence of numbers.
Actually, everyone should know better by now: Passwords are the digital key to our data and should be protected as best as possible from access by criminals. And yet: Too many Internet users still rely on simple series of numbers like “123456”, which do not provide effective protection.
“Many Internet users already manage more than a hundred online accounts,”
says Professor Christoph Meinel, director of the Hasso Plattner Institute (HPI).
“No matter whether we book a trip, shop or take a course – we currently need a password for all online services. “It is annoying to remember a different password for each service and overwhelms many users,”
adds Meinel. Therefore, the choice falls far too often on passwords that are easy to remember. An additional risk is the widespread multiple use of passwords for different services. In an emergency, it allows criminals to access multiple accounts. Everyone needs a password strategy or a password manager these days.
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The Hasso Plattner Institute (HPI) publishes the most used passwords by Germans every year - this year the data is based on 67 million access data from the HPI Identity Leak Checker , which are registered to email addresses with a .de domain and in 2019 were leaked. A total of 178 data leaks were entered into the Identity Leak Checker this year, 96 of which were confirmed by the service providers.
The Hasso Plattner Institute (HPI) has been pointing out the need for secure passwords for many years. However, a look at the top twenty most used passwords in Germany in 2019 shows that weak and unsafe numbers continue to occupy top positions.
Top 20 German passwords
| 1 | 123456 | 11 | dragon |
| 2 | 123456789 | 12 | Ich liebe dich |
| 3 | 12345678 | 13 | password1 |
| 4 | 1234567 | 14 | monkey |
| 5 | password | 15 | qwertz123 |
| 6 | 111111 | 16 | target123 |
| 7 | 1234567890 | 17 | tinkle |
| 8 | 123123 | 18 | QWERTZ |
| 9 | 000000 | 19 | 1q2w3e4r |
| 10 | abc123 | 20 | 222222 |
Tips for choosing a password
When choosing a password, the Hasso Plattner Institute therefore recommends:
- Long passwords (> 15 characters)
- Use all character classes (uppercase, lowercase letters, numbers, special characters)
- No words from the dictionary
- No reuse of the same or similar passwords across different services
- Use of password managers
- Password changes in the event of security incidents and passwords that do not meet the above rules
- Enable two-factor authentication if possible
The Identity Leak Checker
You can easily check whether you have become a victim of data theft using the Identity Leak Checker, an online security check from the Hasso Plattner Institute (HPI). Since 2014, every Internet user has been able to check for free by entering their email address https://sec.hpi.de/ilc
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The security researchers enable comparison with more than 10 billion stolen identity data that is now available on the Internet. The focus is on leaks that affect German users. The offer is unique in Germany.
In total, more than 14 million users have had the security of their data checked using the Identity Leak Checker in the last five years. In more than 3 million cases, users had to be informed that their email address was publicly available on the Internet in conjunction with other personal data.
The Identity Leak Checker Desktop Client:
The Identity Leak Checker Client is a paid offering for larger companies and organizations. You can register your email domain(s) in the client and then receive regular lists of all email addresses affected by a leak in the domain(s).
You might also be interested in: Use these tips to create secure passwords
Source: Hasso Plattner Institute
Article image: Shutterstock / By Tama2u
Notes:
1) This content reflects the current state of affairs at the time of publication. The reproduction of individual images, screenshots, embeds or video sequences serves to discuss the topic. 2) Individual contributions were created through the use of machine assistance and were carefully checked by the Mimikama editorial team before publication. ( Reason )