In recent years, global networking and digitization have been driven forward at a rapid pace. A life without internet and the World Wide Web, without the possibilities of the cloud, and without social media is hard for most people to imagine: Online we do business, find new contacts, carry out private or business conversations, buy and sell, pay, play, stream music or films, store files, and inform ourselves about the latest news from all over the world via news portals.
We put a huge amount of sensitive data into the hands of companies and technology, with passwords in most cases being the only protective measure - one that is apparently often not taken seriously enough - at least that's what the numerous recent data leaks suggest. Cybercriminals have repeatedly succeeded in using attack methods such as malware, phishing e-mails, and brute force attacks to obtain login information and therefore gain access to confidential user data. In 2014, for example, criminals were able to access various log-in information for Apple’s iCloud and published private photos of numerous VIPs because their login data could be identified with little effort.