Collection #1 Hack - What you have to do now

3. Use secure passwords

Use secure passwords for this and from now on. A secure password should be as long as possible. Security researchers recommend a length of at least 12 characters.

Strings of characters within the password should not appear in dictionaries. Ideally, your password should consist of upper and lower case letters and numbers and, if necessary, 1-2 special characters.

You can create a secure password using the so-called Mnemonic rule. To do this, think of a sentence and create the password by combining letters within that sentence.

An example of a mnemonic could look as follows:

I would like to make my online accounts more secure in the near future and use a secure password for each account!

If you use the first letter of each word to create the 23-digit password, it would be as follows:

IwlTmmoamsitNfauaSpfea!

This password is secure according to state of the art technology and the is based on the recommendations of the security experts of NIST (National Institute for Standardization, USA), which develop such recommendations with worldwide validity.

4. Create and remember passwords more easily - use digital tools

It is clear that the mnemonic rule is catchy, but for the multitude of online services used today it is very difficult to apply. For this reason, it is advisable to use digital tools to manage passwords.

The free and from the BSI (German Federal Office for Information Security) recommended tool Keepass. Keepass is available for Windows, Mac OS, Linux, iOS and Android.

Keepass can generate secure passwords for you. These can then be stored together with the user name of an online service in a secure password vault in Keepass.

In future, log in to a web service, simply copy the username and password from Keepass and use these data to login.

To secure the password vault, you then need a very secure password. Create this with a long record based on the above mnemonic rule. Write down this password - and possibly other very important passwords - on a piece of paper and store it, for example in a safe.

Tip: you can also store PIN numbers of your bank cards and other sensitive information in Keepass. Use this opportunity to protect your sensitive data!

What do we learn from the Collection #1 Hack?

It has again been confirmed that absolute security does not exist. Hackers are as active as ever and every online service is potentially at risk of being hacked.

Nevertheless, it also depends on us to protect our own accounts and data as well as possible against attacks. The following points can guide us in this:

• Choose online services you use carefully. For example, to test a service, use Disposable e-mail addresses  that they only use once.
• Ideally, use a unique combination of user name and password for each online service
• Change your passwords regularly. Use a password vault to manage the multitude of secure passwords, such as Keepass
• If possible use the 2-factor authentication to protect your online account
• Protect your children online by creating an email address for them that does not reveal their identity.

Providers of online services will also face enormous challenges in the future to ensure the security of customer data.

Fundamental safety deficiencies as in the case of Cuddles.com must be avoided. There is a need for further standards that regulate the security of online services in a binding manner across all sectors in the future.