Here’s a shocker for you.
According to a survey taken by Centrify, a leader in identity management, 1/3 of online users admit to suffering from ‘password rage’ … with many of them driven to crying, screaming and swearing.
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Here are some of the survey’s more interesting findings:
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From the Centrify survey ….
On average, online users create a new account profile (and password) each week … about 50 each year.
On average, online users are asked to enter about 10 passwords each day.
About 1 in 4 online users say that they forget an account password at least once a day
One-in-three say they have been forever locked out of an account due to forgetting the password of an account profile.
“People believe forgetting passwords to an account they need immediate access to is more annoying than misplacing their keys, having a cell phone battery die, or receiving spam email.”
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Also from the survey, roughly 1 in 3 report that they have been victims of some sort of identity theft … mostly credit card fraud.
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Online users don’t delude themselves on one count:
Only about 15% of online users claim that their passwords are “very secure”.
They’re probably right … more on that tomorrow.
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The Homa Files 
August 3, 2016 at 8:48 am |
I believe having an independent password for every account is critical to personal IT security. Also I believe the various tools available to bypass password security and “remember” your password, are dangerous. But there is a simple answer. Create an algorithm for your passwords. A 12-digit (or more) password is easy if you…make the first 4 digits something that is always the same and is a mix of letters, numbers and punctuation marks. Make the next 4 (or 5 or whatever) digits be an ID for a particular account like “ebay” or “bank”. Make the last 4 digits a sequential series that you can cycle through (abc1…abc2…abc3…). If you have to change your password, cycle through 1 digit. If you forget where you are you will be able to quickly figure it out. Boom. Done.
If you can’t remember that either stay off the internet or be prepared for internet pandemonium.
August 3, 2016 at 11:23 am |
I agree with John Carpenter, but here’s an even better algorithm: use a passphrase tied to a mental image. For example, your social media password might be based on an image of Alice looking at herself in a mirror and smiling. Resulting phrase: “Alice looking glass smiles”. If the system doesn’t like spaces, use . or , for “Alice,lookingglass-smiles”. Research shows 4-word phrases with punctuation and some unusual capitalization has more entropy and is more easily remembered than random or semi-random strings. See this XKCD entry for a visual: https://xkcd.com/936/
Easier to remember means less frustration, and less likely you’ll write it down or need to use LastPass or 1Password.
(Disclaimer: at work I have over 120 passwords I use weekly, with 15 character minimum lengths and monthly resets. I use both LastPass and 1Password to keep track. For my personal stuff I’m slowly migrating to the better method).