These days, you need a password for everything. And chances are, the password you’re creating needs to have numbers and letters, a special character, and include upper and lowercase letters. All those variations and accounts add up, so that on average, a person now has 20 different passwords to manage their daily online tasks.
It can be hard to remember and juggle all those different passwords. We found that 42% say they don’t know all of their current passwords by heart. And what happens when you can’t remember a password? You have to reset it. Not surprisingly, nearly 1 in 5 have to reset passwords due to forgetting what they were.
What do your passwords look like? While more people are using automatic passwords filled with non-linear numbers and letters, many people still combine common phrases, birthday, addresses, and names of family members to construct their most common passwords.
Which is why our survey respondents noted that they can be a little embarrassed by their password choices. More than 1 in 10 report being embarrassed by their passwords, while more than 3 in 10 are embarrassed by old account usernames. So you’re not alone in feeling just a bit ashamed by your SassyLassy112 handle on MySpace and AIM back in the day.
“What people may not consider is that all of our personal practices around cybersecurity ultimately form the behaviors we carry into our work practices, even more so now that we work remotely or from home,” says Anders Norremo, Founder and CEO of ThirdPartyTrust.
“So while we may be ‘embarrassed’ by our passwords or how often we share or forget them, these attitudes become serious when companies rely on employees to protect their data, and the data of all of the other companies they work with,” Norremo adds.
Internet users, after all, are often employees, and these employees often work for third party vendors working with much bigger companies (and their data.) It’s why credentials are so important to Norremo and ThirdPartyTrust, who help companies
automate risk management processes and protect
third party vendors and
enterprise businesses from unmitigated exposure to risk.
With advances in technology come advances in security and passwords. You don’t even need to type in a code in your phone anymore when your face can be a password with functions like Apple’s Face ID. But that security system isn’t for everyone. In fact, only 36% prefer using their face over typing a code or password.