How long does my password have to be and which characters are allowed?

To protect your account as best as possible from unauthorised access, you should use a password that is as secure as possible.

Your password must comply with the following rules:

• At least 12 characters long
• Contains at least one capital letter
• Contains at least one lower case letter
• Contains at least one number
• Contains at least one special character
• Is not your e-mail address
• May be a maximum of 128 characters long

Further tips for a good password

Your password must not be easy to guess. Therefore, it should not have any components that can be obtained from public sources (social media, phone book, member lists), such as your name, the names of your children or your date of birth. Ideally, do not use words that are in a dictionary. Avoid common combinations such as 1234 or abcd.

You can also use a service to check whether passwords for your e-mail address have already been made public as a result of data theft (e.g. on haveibeenpwned.com). Attackers try out these passwords automatically on many websites. That is why it is particularly important to not use a password that you already use for another service, even if this is annoying. Of course, only you should know this password. Do not share it.

How am I supposed to remember that?

Here we have two tips for you:

1. To help you remember a complicated password, try the following memory trick. Think of a sentence. Then take the first letter of each word in this sentence (keeping upper and lower case) and include special characters or numbers. A "to" could therefore become a 2, an "and" could become an "&", and so on.
2. If you find it too cumbersome to memorise a password like this for every website, then use a password manager. This is an app or program that you can use to create and manage secure passwords. The most important functions are already available as free software (e.g. Keepass). Commercial providers also offer additional functions. Major consumer or computer magazines often provide a good overview of these.