Insecure passwords are still responsible for a large proportion of cyberattacks. On "Change Your Password Day", we therefore want to motivate you to change your insecure passwords.
When is a password insecure? Simple passwords such as "123456" or "QWERTY" are obviously not particularly strong, but names or nicknames should also not be used as passwords. You should also change passwords if you notice anything suspicious or strange about the associated account. As a general rule:
Strong passwords...
... should not contain words, names or other common character combinations
... should contain as many different characters as possible (upper and lower case letters, numbers, special characters)
... should be as long as possible - the longer, the stronger
You should use a separate strong password for each account so that several accounts are not directly vulnerable in the event of a cyberattack. It is therefore advisable to use a password manager. A password manager can usually not only save your passwords, but also randomly generate strong passwords. The password manager itself is then protected with an equally strong password so that you only have to remember this one password. If the password manager offers additional security measures, such as two-factor authentication, these should definitely be used. This also applies to all other online accounts.
Strong passwords that you want to remember can be easily created using a password phrase. Example:
On change-your-password-day 2023, I finally made my passwords strong!
From this sentence, you now choose the first letter of each word and also all digits and special characters. In this example, this results in the password AÄ-d-P-T2023hiemPsg!
It is very important here: Use your own sentence, many others already know this one.
We will be happy to advise you
The Crime Prevention and Victim Protection Department invites you to a lecture on online surfing and strong passwords next Tuesday, February 7, 2023 at 6 p.m. in the foyer of the police headquarters (Trierer Straße 501, 52078 Aachen).
If you have any further questions on the subject of strong passwords, please contact the colleagues from the Cybercrime Crime Prevention Department by email at KP-O-Cybercrime.Aachen [at] polizei.nrw.de (KP-O-Cybercrime[dot]Aachen[at]polizei[dot]nrw[dot]de) or by telephone on 0241/9577 34401 and they look forward to welcoming you to the lecture.