Global Survey: Nearly Two Thirds of People Still Rely on Memory to Recall Passwords

Bitwarden, the leading open source password manager for both consumers and business, announced the results of a new global password management survey. The survey shows that while there is awareness of password security best practices, there is still work to be done to put that awareness to full use.

World Password Day (May 6th) marks the perfect time to take stock of consumer behavior and showcase a path forward.

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“It’s encouraging to see so many people reporting familiarity with password management best practices”

While Americans are more likely to report being affected by a data breach in the last 18 months (one-third versus one-fourth of global respondents), 1 in 3 are more interested in having a password that is easy to remember versus being secure. Speaking of memory, a majority of Americans rely on it to keep track of passwords yet nearly one-third reset their passwords daily or multiple times per week because they’ve forgotten them. Experts recommend long, complex, and unique passwords per site, but since this is impossible for any normal human, 9 out of 10 Americans still reuse passwords across multiple sites.

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The good news is that Americans are putting those safe password practices into play in some areas:

• 60% of Americans have an average password length of 9-15 characters (14 is considered a secure start point)
• Nearly half of Americans (45%) say they never share passwords in their personal life but this does fall behind the rest of the world where 54% say they don’t share passwords in their personal life
• A majority (56%) of Americans never share passwords at work, which is on par with the rest of the globe (57%)
• Americans are more likely (40%) to use a password manager than the rest of the globe (31%)
• While the majority of Americans (66%) are not required to use a password manager at work, nearly 3 in 4 Americans (73%) think their workplace should provide a password manager at work, which is higher than the rest of the globe (nearly 65%)
• Most Americans (57%) started using a password manager because they thought it seemed like a good way to protect their digital information

“It’s encouraging to see so many people reporting familiarity with password management best practices,” said Bitwarden CEO Michael Crandell. “While there are holdouts, it shows we need to do more education on the benefits and ease of use of password managers. We don’t think hackers are going to go away, so we want to provide basic password management, for free, to individuals everywhere.”