What Is a Secure Password?
A secure password must meet various criteria. For years, there has been debate about what constitutes a secure password: a long, complex, strong, or unique password. However, it has now been proven that a strong password offers the greatest password security.
What “Strong” Means – A Quick Summary
A strong password ensures the highest possible level of password security and combines key criteria such as length, unpredictability, and uniqueness. A more detailed description can be found in our glossary entry on Password Strength.
In practice, however, another question often arises: How can such passwords be created under real-world conditions without becoming a hassle in everyday life?
Three Proven Methods for Strong Passwords
There is no single right method, but some approaches have proven particularly effective in practice.
Use Passphrases
Passphrases consist of several randomly combined words and are one of the easiest ways to create strong yet memorable credentials.
An example: “LampTigerCoffeeSaturnGuitar”
The length and the unusual combination create a very large search space, which makes attacks much more difficult without compromising memory.
It is important that the words do not have an obvious connection and do not form well-known quotes or phrases. If these unrelated words are then enriched with numbers and special characters, the level of security increases even further.
Use a Password Manager
For many applications, a password manager is the most practical solution. It generates random, long, strong and unique passwords for each individual service and stores them securely.
The big advantage: Users no longer have to remember every password, but only one central master password.
Especially in environments with many accounts, this not only reduces effort, but also prevents typical security problems such as the reuse of passwords.
Using Your Own System – With Caution
A commonly used method is to create passwords using the first letters of a sentence. For example, “I drink coffee every morning at seven” can become a password like “Idcema7!” arise.
Such approaches can improve retention, but should be implemented carefully. Once a pattern is recognized, it can be exploited by attackers.
If a proprietary system is used, it should therefore:
- not be obvious
- does not contain any personal information
- and differ significantly between different services
What Matters When Using Traditional Passwords
Even though modern approaches such as passphrases or password managers offer many advantages, classic passwords are still often used in practice. In such cases, it is crucial to adhere to certain minimum requirements.
A strong password should be long enough and not based on known patterns or personal information. For example, security authorities such as the BSI recommend:
- a length of approximately 8 to 12 characters
- Use of different types of characters such as upper and lower case letters, numbers and special characters
- Minimum length of 20 to 25 characters if only letters are used.
- Password should be unique and unpredictable, not just complex.
Constructs such as “Summer2026!” or “Password123!” may meet formal requirements, but they are easy to guess and therefore do not provide effective protection.
In practice, it also turns out that long and complex passwords are particularly difficult to remember. This often results in them being reused or only minimally customized, which significantly increases the risk of successful attacks. Password managers, for example, can help here, enabling secure storage and at the same time making it easier to deal with complex passwords.
In certain scenarios, such as documenting important access data or in the context of a digital legacy, physical storage can also make sense, for example in a locked safe. However, you should always ensure that only authorized people have access to it.
Therefore: Classic passwords can be secure, but require careful creation, consistent use and secure storage. In many cases, alternative approaches are the more practical and, in the long term, safer solution.
How to Identify Weak Passwords
Insecure passwords can often be identified more quickly than it seems at first glance. What matters is less how complex a password appears, but rather whether it follows predictable patterns.
A typical sign is a recognizable structure, for example when a word is supplemented with numbers or special characters to fulfill formal requirements. Although such designs appear complex, they are often based on known patterns that are already taken into account in many attack scenarios.
Passwords that only differ slightly from each other, for example by exchanging individual characters or changing numbers step by step, are also problematic. Such variations hardly represent an obstacle for attackers.
Another warning sign is when a password is easy to remember without having been consciously designed for it. What seems intuitive to users is often also obvious to attackers.
In practice, if a password follows a simple scheme or can be logically derived, it usually offers less protection than expected.
This is exactly where many typical mistakes when creating passwords come into play.
Common Mistakes When Creating Passwords
A common mistake is to assume that complexity automatically means security. In practice, this often results in short but predictable passwords that are relatively easy to attack.
Reusing passwords is just as problematic. If access is compromised, attackers can often successfully use this data on other services.
Even small adjustments to existing passwords, such as increasing a number at the end, offer little additional protection, as such patterns are already taken into account in many attack scenarios.
Additional Protection: More Than Just a Password
Even strong passwords do not provide complete protection. Additional security mechanisms such as two-factor authentication (2FA) significantly increase security.
In addition to the password, another factor is requested, such as a one-time password via app or a biometric characteristic. Even if a password is compromised, access remains protected in many cases.
Wherever possible, 2FA should therefore be activated.
How Systems Can Support Users
In addition to user behavior, the technical implementation of the authentication system also plays an important role. Modern systems can actively help to increase the quality of passwords and reduce typical risks.
These include, among other things, built-in password strength checks that provide feedback as soon as a password is created, as well as mechanisms for detecting compromised passwords. This ensures that insecure or known passwords cannot be used in the first place.
An integrated lock-out function, which takes effect after several failed login attempts, also significantly increases the security of an access solution. This makes automated attacks such as brute force or dictionary attacks much more difficult.
Summary: Strong Passwords Don’t Just Happen
We have explained in more detail how quickly a password can be cracked in a separate article. At the same time, it becomes clear that creating secure passwords is not a question of luck, but rather the result of clear principles and suitable tools.
If you pay attention to sufficient length, unpredictability and uniqueness, and if necessary use supporting tools such as password managers and additional security mechanisms such as two-factor authentication (2FA), you can significantly reduce the risk of successful attacks.
In the long term, however, it becomes clear that even strong passwords have their limits. Modern methods such as passkeys therefore go one step further and avoid many of the fundamental weaknesses of classic password systems.